Lunar south pole ice as heat sink for lunar cryofuel production system
- PO Box 1625, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415 (United States)
- University of Southwestern Louisiana, Physics Dept., Center for Accessible Resources, Box 4210, Lafayette, Louisiana 70504 (United States)
Recent Clementine bistatic radar data suggest that water ice may be present in a ``forever shaded`` 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 fuel for a transportation system on the moon and for leaving and descending on 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 oxyen 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. {copyright}American Institute of Physics 1995
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Engineering Lab
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC07-94ID13223
- OSTI ID:
- 91869
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950110-; ISSN 0094-243X; TRN: 9516M0047
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 324, Issue 1; Conference: 12. symposium on space nuclear power and propulsion, Albuquerque, NM (United States), 8-12 Jan 1995; Other Information: PBD: 20 Jan 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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