Blue Origin makes a big lunar announcement without any fanfare | Hacker News Reader

Blue Origin makes a big lunar announcement without any fanfare

arstechnica.com

65 pointsrbanffy22 comments

> The engineering work is based on a process known as "molten regolith electrolysis," and Blue Origin has advanced the state of the art for solar cell manufacturing. In this process, a direct electric current is applied to the simulated regolith at a high temperature, above 1,600° Celsius. Through this electrolysis process, iron, silicon, and aluminum can be extracted from the lunar regolith. Blue Origin says it has produced silicon to more than 99.999 percent purity through molten regolith electrolysis.

> The key advance made by Blue Alchemist is that its engineers and scientists have taken the byproducts of this reaction—and these materials alone—to fabricate solar cells as well as the protective glass cover that would allow them to survive a decade or longer on the lunar surface.

This is super cool technology!

I wonder what the applicability would be on earth, say the sands of the Sahara? It appears to contain many of the same components. [0]

For years I have imagined a 40 foot container on tracks eating sand on one end and spitting out low-to-medium quality photovoltaic cells on the other.

[0] https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/chem-2018-012...

Silicon on lunar regolith is mostly plagioclase, pyroxene, and olivine. Quartz (SiO2) is <1%.

Not exactly comparable.

There was a physics today article in the 90s about a group that ran the numbers on a self assembling desert furnace/solar cell/robot factory. Seemed doable, except for the self assembling robot part.

Daniel Suarez's latest book takes a look at this.

It is fairly detail heavy mind!

And the main character seems to have the same arguments again and again, but it is a good book all the same.

SPOILER Along the lines of using moon based resources to develop giant solar satellites to beam power to carbon removal plants to reduce atmospheric CO2.

Ironic that some other crowed were launching sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere which was "inspired" by a Neil Stephenson book.

With over 600 hours on kerbal space program with the interstellar mod installed I can expertly say this is a huge deal.

Now for power storage. Sure, you can set up on the poles and get continual sunshine, but other places it's a bit more challenging. Kinetic Energy Storage Systems (KESS) perhaps? Of course making batteries from regolith would be a rather holistic regolithic solution.

I wonder if thermal storage as a battery is more useful in space without an atmosphere to worry about. In general I wonder what kinds of processes are easier when everything is in a vacuum.

Dissipating heat in a vacuum is certainly more difficult, since it must all be done through radiation instead of convection. It follows that thermal storage would then be more efficient in a vacuum too. I couldn't say whether it would be "better enough" to make it a much more compelling option than it is on Earth though.

I think this technology is really cool. I really like the idea of making resources on the moon, it has a lot of cool application.

But practically speaking for power generation, I don't see much use for this. Like, with one Starship we could launch a nuclear reactor to the moon with enough fuel inside to have a huge moon station powered at all times, including during dark.

In the past we thought we always had to do everything on the moon because getting anything to the moon was so expensive. Starship changes the calculation on that. We can produce 100t of cells on the earth and land them on the moon for a cost of pessimistically a few 100M, optimistically far less.

The overwhelming need to live on the moon is bulk materials, not advanced materials.

I think you underestimate how much a reactor and associated radiators turbines and heat exchangers will weigh

Sub reactors weigh around 100 tons. Not sure how relevant that is, but certainly liftable.

EDIT: Meant to add - much less than the ISS, and I presume multiple launches would be needed.

Possible, yes; but practical? not sure.

Sub reactors can dump excess heat into the water. Radiating heat off in space is presumably much more difficult and inefficient . Also not clear if the working fluid is included in that 100t number. It has to be fully closed system in space.

Solar has additional advantages in cost, redundancy and simplicity of maintenance. That should but be discounted either

NASA already has the Kilopower reactor. Starting with that and then building larger version of it is probably what you want to do. They already have a team that is working on that stuff, all they need is more funding and an actual mission.

I think you might be overestimating how much they'd weigh. It isn't like they need a MW or even GW scale reactor up there right away, and kW reactors like NASA's Kilopower are expected to be ~1.5t, easily allowing several dozen (so, ~600kW worth) to be carried on one Starship.

That said, while nuclear power would be pretty useful in permanently shadowed craters and during lunar nights, Kilopower is probably still not mature enough and the public too scared of the nuclear boogeyman for them to power a moon base this decade.

A larger version of Kilopower is probably what you want. And that probably enough for now.

But I also think a machine that mass produces enough solar panels and batteries on the moon wouldn't be that light.

Kilopower is pretty mature, all it needs it to be actually tested in space.

> public too scared of the nuclear boogeyman

We can not be hostage to a uninformed public opinion. NASA can go ahead with these things just fine. The public doesn't know the difference between a nuclear battery that are often used and a small reactor. The public doesn't start a revolution everytime nuclear is mentioned.

NASA and DoD are literally going to test a nuclear thermal rocket, if they can do that, a tiny nuclear reactor shouldn't be an issue.

I agree that we should not be held hostage to uninformed public opinion, but I feel that we effectively are being held hostage by it.

As you mention, the public can't even tell the difference between an RTG and a reactor and while that doesn't stop flagship missions like Perseverance, it does limit how innovative NASA can be with the use of nuclear technology in space.

NASA and the DoD do have the plan to test a nuclear thermal rocket, but it's in such an early stage that much of the public isn't even aware of it. I'm certain there will be much more backlash from the uninformed masses as the program approaches the point of testing in space, and I'm not at all confident that it won't be cancelled as a result. Hell, with how low the standards are with Congresspeople, I wouldn't be surprised if the program is shut down by them for similar reasons, without much public involvement.

You're underestimating the political complication of sending nuclear power to the moon.

Solar panel manufacturing faces no objections.

You are overestimating the political aspects.

If NASA decides to do it, not much can stop them. We use nuclear generators all the time on things like Curiosity. And lets be real the public doesn't know the difference between a tiny nuclear reactor and that.

Unless people physically show up and try to jump in front of the rocket, they can't do much.

Also, NASA and DoD are planing to test nuclear thermal rockets, and those are way scarier then small nuclear reactors.

NASA just has to move forward with a good plan with confidence and it will work just fine.

Flying a reactor to the moon has the same problem as launching toxic waste into the sun. What happens if that flight explodes in the atmosphere? The risk is intolerable.

It isn't actually.

First of all flying things into the sun is incredibly power intensive and expensive. You are comparing truck loads of 'toxic waste' to a tiny amount of nuclear fuel.

What if the flight explodes in the atmosphere, basically nothing. The reactor is enclosed in steel and will fall into the ocean. At that point in time the reactor is not active.

The reactor is basically just a few pallets of U-235 and U-238, those falling into the ocean isn't a big deal.

Echoing your sentiments, it's worth noting that we've already launched nuclear power generators on a number of NASA missions. Not the usual type of fission reactor, but radioactive material nonetheless. So the risk certainly hasn't been considered intolerable so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...

So they can design things that don’t look like genitals. Huh.

Exhibit B, February 9th: https://www.blueorigin.com/news/nasa-awards-mars-science-mis...

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