Abstract
The Colorado School of Mines has developed a system architecture for a lunar permanently shadowed region (PSR) mining operation to extract and process water ice into liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen propellant. The availability of space-sourced propellants dramatically lowers the cost of space transportation beyond low Earth orbit, enabling the development of a robust commercial economy in cislunar space. A key component of the architecture is an ice extraction method called thermal mining. In thermal mining, ice is sublimated by applying heat directly to the surface and the near subsurface of the PSR, the vapor is captured under a dome-like tent, then directed toward cold traps where it refreezes for transport to a processing system. A simple business case analysis indicates thermal mining of propellants on the Moon can be a profitable commercial enterprise.
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