Space/Science — HabitableZone

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Re: Luna or Mars ?
gbaikie — (archived)

"Speaking of water at the lunar poles...

I know my question is probably naive, but is using solar power to split water (say via electrolysis) recovered from the lunar poles feasible?"

Certainly, I don't know of any reason couldn't be done- other than the fact that it's hasn't already been done. You also have natural cryogenic locations in the craters at lunar pole which could store liquid oxygen easily and with some additional refrideration, liqiud Hydrogen.

"Would that make future missions of interplanetary distances (say NEOs, Mars, Jovian satellites) cheaper even with the high initial outlay in establishing the infrastructure on the Moon?"

Hmm, depends what you mean- if you mean: NASA mines water, converts to rocket fuel to use for it's planetary missions.
No. Very unlikely that would be economical.
{NASA did have a plan of mining oxygen from lunar rocks to be used for missions to Mars, but it was pretty crazy- megalomanical seems like the right diagnosis:). Though it seems obvious to me that mining water would be much easier and refueling in lunar orbit to be much more practical (instead of refueling on lunar surface as was idea in the 1/2 trillion megalomanical plan), I still think NASA couldn't and shouldn't be in mining anything- unless it was "merely" testing methods for which mining could be done.}

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