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#356 - The ice that shocked the world!

In fact, that so-called "Solar Capture and Reflection Tracking Device" is just a mirror with signal tracking.

You can tell from its structure that its purpose is to reflect sunlight and constantly track the solar panels of the lunar rover carrying the beacon, so that the lunar rover can also obtain sunlight in the permanently shadowed areas.

This method is not original to Pathfinder, nor was it conceived by the Tianxia Aerospace Administration; this method has existed for a long time.

But to say it's being used on the moon, that's really a first.

Its originally planned use was more direct, not for charging lunar rovers, but for "boiling water."

There is a near consensus that there is ice in the shadowed areas of the moon; the remaining questions are how to land and how to find it.

These -249°C permanently shadowed lunar craters are the coldest naturally formed places in the solar system, and excavation equipment needs heat and energy to extract this ice and then convert it into fuel.

Because plutonium-based batteries based on natural decay heat generation are too expensive for private companies, and just as expensive for national team research missions, lunar mining is best done using solar energy.

That stuff is much cheaper.

A small town in Europa provided inspiration for this; more than a decade ago, people erected a giant mirror on a mountain overlooking the town, and a bright spot was illuminated in the dark and cold central square in winter.

Scientists hope that future lunar ice miners can emulate this on the moon, where sunlight from high mountains can be directly reflected into the craters to heat the ice and convert it into steam, and then the condensed water is transferred to a processing plant and broken down into hydrogen and oxygen using solar energy. These gases will be stored and used as fuel or placed in fuel cells to provide energy.

However, this method is suitable for lunar bases with well-developed infrastructure; using this method when there is nothing is just a waste of water.

Another approach is to add a few more steps, where the rover can shovel up the ice-bearing soil and put it in a furnace to heat and release the water. The furnace can be heated directly with a high-energy laser, or it can be irradiated onto a solar panel first and then converted into electrical energy for heating.

Someone has tested it in the lab, and the results are feasible. How to implement it on the moon specifically needs to be verified.

If large pieces of ice cannot be obtained, there is another source of water on the moon, which is lunar soil, also known as regolith.

Regolith contains silicon and metal oxides, averaging 43% oxygen by mass, and is found everywhere on the moon.

Oxygen extracted from the soil can provide energy for bases far from the poles that have scientific or economic value, and produce useful by-products such as rare metals.

Regolith does not easily give up its "wealth"; releasing oxygen from chemical bonds is more energy-intensive than heating ice.

In theory, a reactor could use large mirrors to refract sunlight into a special furnace, heating the lunar soil to over 900 °C until it glows.

At this temperature, hydrogen or carbon brought from Earth can strip oxygen from the minerals and combine with the hydrogen to form water.

More than a decade ago, scientists conducted tests in the laboratory using simulated lunar regolith, which proved that this operation was feasible, but the low-gravity and vacuum environment was not tested, so whether it can be used on the moon specifically also needs to be verified on-site.

Researchers hope to improve this technology further and reduce the amount of material that must be brought from Earth.

Some aerospace research teams are developing a prototype that can work at low temperatures and can recycle all input materials, such as methane and hydrogen, so that only soil needs to be consumed to obtain water and fuel.

However, it takes decades for a set of equipment to produce enough fuel to send a lunar lander of the Apollo program type into orbit, so to really use it, multiple reactors must be operated on the moon simultaneously.

Other teams are trying to extract oxygen from solid metal ores by energizing a molten salt bath instead of using chemical reactions. They hope this technology can provide high-quality alloys for the aerospace industry and may provide high-purity metals for machines used on the moon in the future.

It is estimated that 190 tons of lunar soil contains 15-16 tons of oxygen-containing iron minerals, which can produce 1 ton of oxygen, and only 1 ton of oxygen needs to be produced per year to maintain the survival of 10 people on the moon.

Secondly, if humans are to live in a self-sufficient system on the moon, they must also ensure the food supply, and food also needs water.

Where does the food come from?

In recent years, scientists have conducted a large number of biological experiments on space stations, and have cultivated more than 100 kinds of "space plants", including wheat, corn, oats, soybeans, tomatoes, radishes, cabbage, beets, lettuce, etc.

And it has been proven that in the weightlessness of space, plant seeds have a higher germination rate, grow faster, and flower or head earlier in lunar soil.

Scientists have also conducted experiments on some animals, proving that weightlessness does not affect the birth of new life.

In space stations, fruit flies can mate, lay eggs, and reproduce offspring like on Earth.

Bees build nests, and queen bees still have children.

The 60 quail eggs sent on the spaceship can still hatch into small quails after returning to the ground.

The fish eggs that were left on the spaceship for 59 days all hatched smoothly after returning to the ground.

Mammals are no exception. Female and male rats are placed in cages and sent into space, and they still live together happily. The female rats still become pregnant, and the first generation of "space rats" are born after returning to the ground.

As long as a lunar agriculture and aquaculture base is established on the moon, there is sufficient guarantee for the food source for people on the moon.

Research also shows that the energy supply for lunar bases is not a problem.

Because the moon has no wind or rain, is clear and sunny, and is exposed to sunlight all day long, and there is no atmospheric absorption, the radiation intensity of the sun is about 1.5 times that of the Earth.

Therefore, the moon can fully utilize solar energy for lighting, heating, warming, and power generation.

Of course, when necessary... well, after the technology matures, nuclear power plants can also be built on the moon to ensure a sufficient supply of energy for the base.

It can be said that scientists are very optimistic about human survival and exploration on the moon and have done a lot of experiments for this.

It's just that a real lunar experiment is needed.

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No, there are lunar experiments. Tianxia's Chang'e-4 carried a miniature ecosystem, and the seeds inside successfully sprouted.

It's just that the miniature ecosystem was too "miniature". Rather than an ecosystem, it was more like an ecological tank, with a total weight of only 3 kilograms, so it was not equipped with a heating function, so the temperature inside the ecosystem plummeted with the ambient temperature after entering the lunar night phase, and the plant sprouts died immediately.

Now, Pathfinder and Tianxia are here, as well as complete astronaut survival capsules.

The astronaut's mission sequence includes plant and animal cultivation. There is a corner in the survival capsule with planting modules and breeding boxes, specially used for cultivating plants and raising small animals.

So not only fuel needs water, but they also need water, and it cannot be water brought from Earth.

On the evening of the second day after the astronauts landed on the moon, Pathfinder and the Tianxia Aerospace Administration simultaneously released a picture.

The picture is very clear, with lights illuminating it. Under the lights is a large area of gray land, and the most striking thing is a white spacesuit arm, or rather, a gray crystalline substance in the palm of the hand.

Under the light, some places of the crystalline substance reflect a strange brilliance, and some translucent places are even more eye-catching.

Quartz?

Crystal?

No, it's just a dirty piece of ice!

Yes, the name given to the picture by Pathfinder and the Aerospace Administration is - "A Dirty Piece of Ice".

There is no need to guess, they directly gave the answer.

Gray land, spacesuit arm, ice!

Outside.

!!!

Wait, no way, is it what I think it is?!

Is this such a big discovery on the first day?

This confirms that the moon is naturally a transit station for humans to go to space.