Oil on the Moon

Elon Musk, SpaceX and the BFR have got me really pumped about space. I'm thinking we might have people on the moon within ten years or so. Yes, I know, all the jibber-jabber seems to be directed at Mars, but while Mars is a lofty goal, there is so much we could do with the Moon and the Moon is right here, just two or three days travel time away, not months like going to Mars would take.

The thing about having a base on the moon is that we would need to have a reliable shuttle service to get people and supplies back and forth. Having people die up there because we had a haphazard shuttle service would be very bad.

Since rocket fuel is the biggest component by mass of space flight, it would be very nice if we could refuel on the moon. If order to do that we would need to find some kind moon rocks that could be turned into rocket fuel. Water would work, simply apply hydrolysis and you get hydrogen and oxygen, which can be kept conveniently stored at cryogenic temperatures, which means anywhere you are in the shade. The biggest drawback to this is that electrolysis is slow. You can make it run faster, but it takes more power, which means a bigger power plant. I see three ways of making electrical power on the moon:

1. Photovoltaic solar cells
2. Solar heating -> steam turbine -> generator
3. Nuclear reactor -> steam turbine -> generator

We might see fusion power one of these days, but I'm not holding my breath.


Most garden variety rocks on Earth are made of some kind silicon oxide. I suspect the same holds true for the Moon. Heat those rocks up hot enough and they should give off some oxygen. Of course, at that kind of temperature, the silicon is going to be molten and some of it will go doubt vaporize. Not too worry, I'm sure some whiz-kid can figure out a way to get rocket-fuel-grade oxygen out of a rock. So we've got oxygen, what are we going to use for fuel? Don't know of anyone using silicon or any kind of metal for rocket fuel.

On Earth we have fossil fuels in the form of deposits of natural gas and crude oil buried deep underground. The story we tell ourselves is that crude oil comes from millions of years of dead dinosaurs. I heard another story one time that suggested these fossil fuel deposits were the result of geological processes and if life had never appeared on Earth they would still be there.

Think about this for a minute. The primary components of fossil fuels are hydrogen and carbon (hydro-carbons, eh?). The dinosaurs didn't make these atoms. They were already here. They are fairly common near the surface, because like silicon oxide they are relatively light (less dense) than the heavier metals, which have mostly sunk to the core (right?).

So the Moon might very well have hydrocarbon deposits. If it does, we could build a rocket fuel plant on the moon which would make it possible to carry a whole lot more stuff to the moon and back.