Ice mine and water works on the Moon and Mars

Ice mine and water works

Topic: resource extraction

A plant that would dig up frozen water from shadowed craters and turn it into drinking water, oxygen and rocket fuel.

Purpose

Water, oxygen and fuel from ice

Evidence

LCROSS found water at the lunar south pole (2009)

Turns into

Hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis

Status

Being studied

Real world Why ice is so valuable

Water is the most useful resource beyond Earth: people drink it, plants need it, it shields against radiation, and splitting it gives oxygen to breathe and hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. In 2009 NASA's LCROSS mission crashed a spent rocket stage into a permanently shadowed crater near the Moon's south pole and detected water in the plume of debris.

An artist's view of the LCROSS mission, which crashed a rocket stage into a lunar crater in 2009 and detected water. Photo: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Possible future How it would work

Robotic diggers would work inside dark craters colder than anywhere on Earth.
Icy soil would be heated in sealed ovens so the water turns to vapor.
The vapor would be captured, frozen again and cleaned.
Electrolysis would split some water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Gases would be chilled into liquids and stored as rocket fuel.

The Moon's south pole region seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Dark craters may hide water ice. Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Possible future Challenges

No one yet knows exactly how much ice there is, how deep, or how mixed with soil. Machines must work in extreme cold and darkness, powered by cables or nuclear power. There are also questions about who may use these resources, which nations are discussing under agreements such as the Artemis Accords.

Art In this artwork

This illustration shows a spherical building with a large window, pipes and a pool. Here we imagine it as a works that turns ice into water.

Look closer

Find the pool of water.
Follow the pipes from the sphere.

Think about it

Who should be allowed to mine ice on the Moon?
Why is water useful for so many things in space?
How would you dig in a crater that never sees sunlight?

Key words

Electrolysis: Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen with electricity.
Propellant: Fuel and oxygen burned by a rocket.
Resource: Something useful that can be gathered.

Use it in class

How could humans live on Mars? (Explainer, grades 5-12)

Sources

The real-world facts on this page are based on these sources:

NASA, LCROSS mission (2009) and studies of water ice in permanently shadowed lunar craters
NASA, "In-Situ Resource Utilization" (using local resources on the Moon and Mars)
NASA, "The Artemis Accords" (2020) and list of signatories