This is a working document outlining the entire Lunar Homestead Lunar In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Research Path. All the steps to go from raw, untouched Lunar regolith and mega-regolith to refined materials ready to be used.
Lunar Homestead is currently focused on the Lunar mare mega-regolith basalt so everything else, like regolith, will have much less information. Feel free to sign up as a Research Partner and help fill in the blanks.
Step 1 – Environmental Conditions
Surface
Gravity
- 1.62 meters per second squared acceleration, or 16.5% of Earth gravity
Atmosphere
Dust
Radiation
Thermal
Impactors
Lighting Conditions
- Shallow quakes originating 20-30 km below the surface
- Up to 5.5 on the Richter scale
- Can last more than 10 minutes
Shielded Pressurized Oxygen Resource Extraction (SPORE)
Gravity
- 1.62 meters per second squared acceleration, or 16.5% of Earth gravity
Atmosphere
- 100% oxygen atmosphere pressurized to 48 kPa
Temperature / Humidity
Dust
- Some unknown amount of regolith dust and mining dust
- Shallow quakes originating 20-30 km below the surface
- Up to 5.5 on the Richter scale
- Can last more than 10 minutes
- Underground structures may be safer than surface structures
Step 2 – Available Resources
SPORE Apollo 12 Regolith and Mega-Regolith Characterization
Apollo 12 Regolith
Basalt
Apoll 12 Mega-Regolith
Basalt
- Lunar Basalt
- Earth basalt parameters (unprocessed)
- Lunar Basalt Parameters (unprocessed)
- Comparison of Earth and Lunar basalt parameters (unprocessed)
- Physical properties
- Chemical properties
- Comparison to Earth basalt
- Abundance
- Location
- Simulants
- Physical properties
- Chemical properties
- Comparison to Earth ilmenite
- Abundance
- Location
- Simulants
Simulants
Step 3 – Resource Extraction (mining)
Surface
Lunar surface mining equipment
- Front-end loaders
- Bulldozers
- Scrapers
- Hydraulic excavators
- Electric shovels
- Draglines
- Clamshells
- Lunarpedia Sandworm
- Continuous miner (used in coal mining)
SPORE (Basalt mare mega-regolith)
Shielded Pressurized Oxygen Resource Extraction tech
Hand mining tools
- Hammer
- Engineering
- Sledge
- Geologic hammer
- Cracking hammer
- Pick
- Chisel
- Star drill
- Plug and feather/wedge and feather
- Pry bar (long and short) – Remove rock from surrounding medium. Insert into cracks to break large rocks.
- Hand drill (to create weak spots and chisel points)
- Saw
- Metal
- Stone
- Magnetic locked boots
- Mechanical locked boots
- Add iron weights to waist/legs/boots to add overall mass
Pneumatic mining tools
- Pneumatic drill (aka jackhammer)
- Oxygen pneumatic rotary hammer – for use in the SPORE environment
- Attachment to SPORE to mitigate gravity
Electric mining tools
- Electric drill
- Electric saw
- Electric metal saw
- Electric stone saw
- Electric rotary hammer
- Attachment to SPORE to mitigate gravity
Safety tech
- Self-contained breathing gear
- Basalt fabric over-suit
- Fire mitigation
Dust control
- Fine dust mitigation
- Water spray
- Atmosphere (oxygen) circulation
- Electrostatic
- Dig deeper (get away from regolith dust)
- Vacuum – for cleaning up dust
Waste
Personnel
Procedures
Step 4 – Material Transportation (from mine to processing equipment)
Surface
To be determined
SPORE
Buckets
Pulleys
Hand truck
Mining cart
Safety tech
Personnel
Procedures
Step 5 – Physical Processing
Surface
To be determined
SPORE
Manual Universal Power Supply (MUPS) – for powering machinery
Commution (crushing)
- Jaw crusher
- Basalt crushing experiments (by hand)
Grinding
Particle Size Sorting
- Electro-static – fine dust
- Mechanical (sieves)
- Vibration
Concentration
Power
- Manual Universal Power Supply
Waste
Safety Tech
- Fine dust mitigation
Personnel
Procedures
Step 6 – Powder Transportation
SPORE
Buckets
Pulleys
Mining cart
Safety tech
Personnel
Procedures
Step 7 – Types of Processing
Bucket processing
Continuous flow processing
Step 8 – Volatile Extraction
Regolith
Mega-regolith
Part of hydrogen reduction process (using same equipment)
Separate process/equipment
Step 9 – Chemical Processing
Oxygen/Iron extraction
- Ilmenite Reduction With H2
- Molten Silicate Electrolysis
- Glass Reduction With H2
- Fluxed Silicate Electrolysis
- Vapor Phase Reduction
- Ilmenite Reduction with C/CO
- Ilmenite Reduction with CH4
- Plasma Reduction with Cl2
- Reduction H2S
- Caustic Dissolution & Electrolysis
- Carbothermal Reduction
- Ion Plasma Separation
- Carbochlorination
- Extraction with F2
- Magma Partial Oxidation
- Li or Na Reduction of Ilmenite
- Plasma Reduction of Ilmenite
- Hydrofluoric Acid
- Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4)
Step 10 – Oxygen Refining
Purification
Storage
- Pressure tanks
- Valves
- Pipes
- Gauges
Step 11 – Iron Refining
Mongrel metal refining
Physical processing
Storage
Step 12 – Iron Oxide Depleted Basalt Processing
Hydrogen reduction of additional metal oxides
Other chemical reduction of additional metal oxides
Sintering
Melting
Casting