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dirtballmagnet t1_je0rp8r wrote

Reply to comment by Shadowtirs in More Water Found on Moon, Locked in Tiny Glass Beads by LanceOhio

This is how I would tell it to myself:

After the impact, the vaporized surface material would begin to cool and condense, pretty much like raindrops form in clouds. And there would be a cloud of volatiles and other stuff that wasn't yet condensing.

We can imagine that just before the rock cooled off enough to start changing phase, the water was freely intermixed with it. Then as it crystallized it would push out the liquids and gases, but sometimes the lattice would form like a tent around that pocket of gas, and trap it. Some of the trapped stuff would be water.

It seems a no-brainer to set up a giant magnifying class and start sintering lunar regolith. Focus sunlight, melt the rock, open the lattice holes, cook off and capture the volatiles and water, now you have a little water, tons of oxygen, and a stupid amount of titanium-rich slag that you might be able to use as feedstock for a 3d printing system.

Now you don't have to monkey around with the poles and their finite-over-human timescale-water supply. Just sinter layer after layer of rock that you've already excavated for your construction.

... Is my relatively uninformed opinion.

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deathputt4birdie t1_je1heiu wrote

Don't forget to capture the Helium-3 for aneutronic fusion. These guys will probably be interested in buying some

https://www.helionenergy.com/

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flamenode t1_je1nb6j wrote

Thanks for the link, I applied for a graphic designer role.

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No-Inspector9085 t1_je264m5 wrote

I thought this was an insult and was surprised when I clicked the link it wasn’t a page stuck in the early 90s

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cjameshuff t1_je1p9n6 wrote

Helion doesn't need He-3, their reactors are supposed to produce their own by D-D fusion. And at any rate, the glassy beads of the regolith apparently contain up to about 2 parts per thousand of water. The He-3 content is more like 15 parts per billion.

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_Jam_Solo_ t1_je2i8wc wrote

What's weird about the moon, is there is no atmosphere, so, it's like having no water for things to float in. Things that might normally float here, like water vapour, would just fall to the ground on the moon, and only float over whatever else happens to be down there from the explosion.

I'm not sure how useful your system would be though. I feel like the amount of time and energy you'd need to spend melting the regolith and collecting the gasses and whatnot, might be excessive in comparison to the amount of water you'd get. Also, I'd imagine you'd get different results from different impacts. Some impacts might be quite water rich, and others no water at all. But even the water rich ones, might not be rich enough for this to be a viable method of collecting enough water for anything.

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Fit-Capital1526 t1_je1m567 wrote

Maybe not melt, but heat and force the release of water rich volatiles. Then it is time for fractional distillation to separate the volatiles. Water might not be the only thing we would want

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IAMA_Printer_AMA t1_je1oxw4 wrote

Lunar polar ice is finite on human timescales? How quickly could we burn through it?

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ErikGoesBoomski t1_je2v4x1 wrote

I mean, look how quickly we burned through the earth's bountiful resources.

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afraid_of_zombies t1_je4oht0 wrote

Pretty sure they are still there

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ErikGoesBoomski t1_je6cxt2 wrote

Just in forms that cannot be used.

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afraid_of_zombies t1_je6y3fd wrote

Well I do industrial waste processing. Can you tell me what resource we can't yet recover so I can tell marketing?

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ErikGoesBoomski t1_je76vyl wrote

Can industrial waste processing bring back the flora and fauna that have been removed by humans? How about removing the mercury from our air and waterways? Or all the radioactive particles we have been pumping into the world for the past few decades? I guess it isn't so much about squandering the natural resources of the planet, more along the lines of rapidly making it into an inhospitable wasteland.

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afraid_of_zombies t1_je7h86n wrote

I cant see the goalposts you have moved them so far.

Continue to scream on the internet, tomorrow I will go to work and make the world that much cleaner.

Oh, and air scrubbers as well as ground water remediation. To answer your flippant question.

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ErikGoesBoomski t1_je7piju wrote

Seriously guy? Go ahead and deploy them. Prove me wrong.

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afraid_of_zombies t1_jea1z2n wrote

Deploy what? Maybe spend more than 3 seconds formulating a response.

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ErikGoesBoomski t1_jea29m5 wrote

Deploy your magic scrubbers that are going to undo all the damage done to the planet. Go ahead and tackle pfas while you're at it.

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afraid_of_zombies t1_jea2l43 wrote

Tell me what a wet-dry scrubber is, the purpose of blowoff and a recirculation line right now and I will answer your question.

Since you clearly know about this stuff you should be able to answer.

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willun t1_je2xhs2 wrote

600 billion litres. By the time we use that we will be able to reposition a comet for resupply.

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flovell3 t1_je1g6do wrote

This opinion seems pretty informed to me!

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maulinrouge t1_je1tcyf wrote

What the f*** did I just walk in to. This seems incredible but I understand nothing towards the end. Do you have a tldr?

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greatstarguy t1_je28kfp wrote

Imagine crushing a Snickers bar in your hand. Your body heat makes it softer, and when you squeeze it, the filling comes out.

That’s basically what they’re proposing. Heat and compress moon rocks to get the water and oxygen out of them, and you can use those for life support and the leftover slag for building things. If it’s all solar-powered, it’s a lot more convenient than other methods.

The sticking point here is how much we’ll be able to get out of these rocks, and how useful the leftover slag is.

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Singular_Crowbar t1_je2x944 wrote

Thank you for humbling me.

I have no idea what over half of the terms you used mean, and I used to think I was smart.

Appreciate the lesson lol

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thezenfisherman t1_je41bcn wrote

According to NASA "Between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface."

Why didn't we know this since these landings?

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