On Earth, breathing isn’t something we usually have to focus on or worry about too much. Oxygen
is just all around us, trapped in our atmosphere and constantly being replenished by plants through
photosynthesis. But when we consider living on other objects in the solar system, such as on the
moon, the practice of breathing immediately becomes a major issue because there’s seemingly
no oxygen present. But is that really the case? This is Unveiled and today we’re exploring the
extraordinary reason why there’s actually enough oxygen on the moon for eight billion people.
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Talk of building a base on the moon has been around for years now, but many perhaps still
question what the point is in doing so. After all, as we found in another recent video,
there arguably was little reason to go to the moon in the first place (in the late ‘60s and
early ‘70s) except to win the space race and prove that we could. But now, we seemingly have
another space race on our hands, regardless, to get back to the moon… and this time stay there.
The likes of Russia and China have announced their intentions toward a moon base, while
NASA’s Artemis Program seeks to do the same… and the wider, international effort includes the space
agencies of Japan, Canada, the UK, Australia, and more. The most often stated reasons for
going to the moon this time around include that it could take space research into an all-new realm…
with ground telescopes on the moon, for example, offering a far better and wider view of the rest
of the universe. The moon is also invariably billed as though it’s a “practice ground” for
Mars, too, with future missions to the Red Planet increasingly on everyone’s radar.
And, with this in mind from a practical point of view, the moon could also undoubtedly function
as a fantastic launch pad in the future. Getting objects into orbit from Earth is hard because of
the energy required to overcome gravity and break away from the planet… but launching rockets from
the moon requires about thirty times less energy, meaning that if we could ever get the payloads
there first, we could achieve far cheaper, easier, and more efficient space travel.
But, of course, if we really want to set up a long-term (or permanent) human presence on the
moon, we’re going to have to learn to live off the land that it provides - for what’s called
in-situ resource utilization. And let’s be real… it’s taken us thousands of years to really master
this even here, on Earth. And, in many ways, we still aren’t using even our own planet to
its full potential or efficiency. The moon, by comparison, is hostile to life from the outset…
and while we perhaps could make it work simply by shipping supplies from Earth, there are a number
of issues with that strategy, including cost. The goal of current research, then, is to find
ways to create new-but-sustainable environments on the lunar surface, or perhaps underground.
And, recently scientists performed a world-first by growing plant life in lunar soil, otherwise
known as the regolith or moondust. Breakthroughs are, then, already taking place. More important
than even food, however, is being able to breathe. In whichever way you look at it, we’re going to
need a lot of oxygen to sustain human life on the moon… so where’s it going to come from?
As it turns out, and according to the most up-to-date research, there’s actually plenty
that’s already there. And, again, it all has to do with the soil. Soil on the moon
is different to soil on Earth. It’s more a mix of debris rather than soil as we’d imagine it;
it’s rock fragments and splintered leftovers from asteroid or meteorite collisions millennia ago.
Moon soil is also constantly exposed to cosmic radiation since there’s no atmosphere to protect
it, which has an impact, too. And yet still, incredibly, this soil - the lunar regolith – is
actually around forty-five percent oxygen in its composition – according to NASA, ESA, and all
leading groups. Which is a massive amount! And, while the numbers have been crunched differently
by various studies and sources, it amounts to there being more than enough oxygen present for
any one person to survive, even within just a few square feet of the lunar surface. At the
top end of the scale, it’s been variously reported that theoretically there’s enough
soil (and oxygen) total on the moon to provide for eight billion people – close to the current
world population. And, ultimately, not just for a couple years, either… but for hundreds, thousands,
perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years, depending upon how deep into the moon we dig.
Suffice to say, this is some pretty good news. Not least because oxygen has more potential
uses than simply allowing us to breathe. It’s also vital in fuel… which means that,
if an effective enough strategy were implemented, soil extraction could truly be a game changer for
our space travel ambitions. Why, then, aren’t we already tapping the moon for all it’s worth?
The main problem is that the oxygen that’s there, trapped (as it is) in dust, isn’t
in gaseous form. If it were, it would drift away into space. Instead, it’s contained in oxidized,
solid materials like silica, iron, and aluminum. On the face of it, this is no bother… scientists
do already know how to extract oxygen from these, and can do so easily on Earth. But unsurprisingly,
it is also quite a bit more difficult to run the same processes on materials from the moon.
To separate out all the constituent parts and isolate the oxygen in lunar soil,
we need to produce enough energy – a lot of energy – to break the individual molecules apart. And
creating that amount of energy on the moon isn’t simple. In fact, working out how to do so has long
been a goal for scientists, who have actually long known that there is oxygen on the moon… if only we
could get to it. On Earth we employ a process called electrolysis generally to separate metal
from oxygen because metal is more valuable to us, here… but it would be the reverse situation on the
moon. The oxygen by-product is what we’d be most wanting to harvest, only to do so we’d need all
sorts of heavy tech on site – which isn’t really physically (or financially) feasible right now.
So, are there other methods that might be used instead? In theory, yes. One is that we go the
hydrogen reduction route, wherein we heat up lunar soil and then expose it to hydrogen,
which acts as a reducing agent and produces water vapor. That water vapor is then put through a
lighter version of electrolysis that might be more manageable. This method has been widely
researched, too, with some experiments run using genuine soil samples from the Apollo missions.
Experiments like these have helped researchers to glean other bits of important information, as
well, over the years. For example, it’s been found that that out of volcanic glass – one particular
part of the debris that makes up lunar soil – we can generate more oxygen than from any of the
other soil materials. It’s also been shown that oxygen percent yield is apparently related to how
much iron is present in any one sample, with more iron generally meaning more oxygen to harvest.
Of course, it’s not as though the soil is the only potential source of oxygen on the moon, either.
There are proposals that we could just as well use basic electrolysis on the water ice around
lunar polar regions, at least in the beginning, before we need to siphon it from the very ground
below our feet. And we know that moon mission planners are already extremely keen to develop a
sure-fire way to extract water from the moon… for obvious reasons, but also because the hydrogen and
oxygen present in water could also be used to make rocket fuel. And the European Space
Agency has already taken steps to get such an extraction process started… preparing the In-Situ
Resource Utilization Demonstration Mission to show the potential routes forward. Meanwhile,
researchers in China have reportedly developed a method that’s being described as “extraterrestrial
photosynthesis”, involving a solar-powered process also designed to turn water into oxygen.
It would appear as though there is more than one way to go about it… but, for now, simply knowing
that there is oxygen there (in any form) is exciting. If we can learn to break down the basic
components of lunar soil, we should then have a reliable source of life’s most crucial element,
which will help us grow food, make water, create fuel, build shelter, and most importantly…
breathe. And that’s why there’s enough oxygen on the moon for eight billion people.
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other
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