Lunar South Pole ice as heat sink for Lunar cryofuel production system

• Main Authors: Zuppero, A., Stanley, M., Modro, S. M., Whitman, P.
• Other Authors: United States. Department of Energy.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Idaho National Engineering Laboratory 1995
• Subjects: 42 Engineering Not Included In Other Categories; Oxygen; Feasibility Studies; 32 Energy Conservation; Consumption; And Utilization; Ice Caps; Production; Uses; Fuels; Lunar Materials; Luna Space Probes; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc687637/

Recent Clementine bistatic radar data suggest that water ice may be present in a {open_quotes}forever shaded{close_quotes} depression or crater at the South Pole of the Moon. The ice is a feedstock for the electrolysis production of cryogenic oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuels for a transportation system on the moon and for leaving and descending on to the moon. The ice also provides a convective heat sink critical to the practical implementation of high throughput electric power generators and refrigerators that liquefy and cool the oxygen and hydrogen into cryogenic rocket fuel. This brief analysis shows that about a hundred tonnes of hardware delivered to the lunar surface can produce tens of thousands of tonnes of rocket fuel per year, on the moon. And it makes the point that if convective cooling is used instead of radiative cooling, then power and processing systems can be used that exist and have been tested already. This shortens the time by an order of magnitude to develop lunar operations. Quick deployment of a chemical cryofuel energy source is a key factor in the economics of lunar development.