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 ...
continued below
Publisher Info:
Idaho National Engineering Lab., Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Place of Publication:
Idaho Falls, Idaho
Provided By
UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
Serving as both a federal and a state depository library, the UNT Libraries Government Documents Department maintains millions of items in a variety of formats. The department is a member of the FDLP Content Partnerships Program and an Affiliated Archive of the National Archives.
Descriptive information to help identify this article.
Follow the links below to find similar items on the Digital Library.
Description
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.
This article is part of the following collection of related materials.
Office of Scientific & Technical Information Technical Reports
Reports, articles and other documents harvested from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information.
Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is the Department of Energy (DOE) office that collects, preserves, and disseminates DOE-sponsored research and development (R&D) results that are the outcomes of R&D projects or other funded activities at DOE labs and facilities nationwide and grantees at universities and other institutions.
Zuppero, A.; Stanley, M.; Modro, S. M. & Whitman, P.Lunar South Pole ice as heat sink for Lunar cryofuel production system,
article,
March 1, 1995;
Idaho Falls, Idaho.
(digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc687637/:
accessed February 19, 2019),
University of North Texas Libraries, Digital Library, digital.library.unt.edu;
crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.