NASA
TO MAKE H2O ON MOON AND O2 ON MARS
Do you know: NASA is planning to make water on the moon in
2018 and oxygen on mars in 2020.
The moon
mission will be the us space agency’s first atempt to demonstrate in-situ
resource utillisation (ISRU) beyound earth.
The purpose
of ISRU,or “living of the land” is to harness and utilize space resources to
create products and services which enable and significantly reducethe mass
,cost, and risk of near-term and long-term space exploration.
Every pound
that you don’t have to launch from earth of dumb mass things like water and air
and propellent means that you can add a pound of intelligent mass ,an
experiment ,a computer ,something designed to accomplish some job or give us
some capability.
Doing ISRU gives you incredible leverage
because you’re changing the fraction of intelligent-to-dumb mass on your space
craft in favour of the intelligent part.
The first
inspace ISRU test is targeted for 2018 but NASA plans to launch a mission
called resource prospector that
includes a rover with instruments to scout for telltale
hydrogen, drill out samples,heat them
and scan for water vapour and other volatiles on the moon. Vapour also
could be re-condensed to form a drop of water .
A lot of
technologies have broader use than just lunar….its just a convenient location to be testing the ISRU Technology.
And the device which Is yet to be
selected would pull carbon di oxide from the planets atmosphere,filter out dust and other
particles and prepare the gas for chemical
processing into oxygen.The demonstration also could include actual
oxygen production .
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