Aerospace engineer Thorsten Denk was shooting for the Moon. He invented a machine that could allow astronauts on the Moon to make water and oxygen from dust and rocks.
Denk’s invention uses solar power to chemically split water from the Moon’s regolith. That’s the loose, dry soil and small rocks that lie on the surface, above the hard bedrock. The reactor would be powered by sunlight in the two prolonged weeks of “lunar daytime” that the Moon experiences. It takes very high temperatures to split the chemicals apart, but the super-long days on the Moon provide the continuous light and heat the reactor needs to reach and maintain those temperatures. Denk proposes that his device could make enough oxygen and water for six to eight astronauts.
The idea to make oxygen and water on the Moon is not new. Carrying it to the Moon is not feasible. “Every material you bring from Earth costs money,” Denk says. “For every kilogram of payload, you need hundreds of kilograms of fuel.” Denk’s prototype has finished a six-month test run on Earth. It is a full-sized model—not one that would need to be scaled up to function in the Moon’s actual environment. So Denk is convinced that putting his reactor into service could happen in the not-too-distant future.
It took 10 years to complete the invention. The reactor uses solar power to produce 700 grams of water in an hour, and 2.5 kilograms of oxygen in about four hours. Initially, a small amount of hydrogen would be needed to get the process started. That hydrogen would have to come from Earth. But hydrogen is the lightest element, so the payload initially carried to the Moon would be small compared to taking water or oxygen.
Here’s how the process works. The first component is iron-titanium oxide. That material is found on the dark side of the Moon. A small, digging robot would locate the oxide—called ilmenite—and bring it to the reactor on the sunny side of the Moon. The reactor would add hydrogen and heat, which bonds the hydrogen to the oxygen in the ilmenite, producing water. Next, the water would be split into oxygen and hydrogen by electrolysis—freeing the oxygen to be captured as a gas. The hydrogen returns to the reactor to repeat the process.
Scientists have labored for decades to develop a process for making oxygen on the Moon. Maybe soon they will be able to breathe easy—here or there—with Thorsten Denk’s invention!
