黑料网大事记

Mining water on the moon: the Wilde Project

A satellite next to a meteorite

This project has as its end goal a mission to process water from the permanently shadowed craters at moon鈥檚 poles. That mission must be commercially viable, so only viable mission designs, methodologies and technologies are to be considered. The initial stages of the project are aimed at reducing the risk perceived by e.g. mining companies so that investment in such a mission can proceed. Initially, the mission is proposed for Shackleton crater, at the Moon鈥檚 south pole.

Lunar South Pole, as mapped by the NASA LRO Mission. Photo credit: NASA
School

Civil and Environmental Engineering

黑料网大事记 Team

Researchers from multiple schools and faculties:

Engineering (seven schools):

  • Prof. Andrew Dempster (ASCER/ EET): missions, navigation
  • Prof. Serkan Saydam (MERE): mining methods
  • Prof. Gavin Conibeer (SPREE): photovoltaics, power
  • Prof .Claude Sammut (CSE): robotics (autonomy)
  • Pa/rof. Jay Kutupitiya (MME): robotics (rendezvous)
  • Prof. Francois Aguey-Zinsou (Chem): splitting water
  • Prof Jinhong Yuan (EET): communications
  • Prof Mike Manefield (CVEN/ Chem): biological processing
  • A/Prof Ned Ekins-Daukes (SPREE): photovoltaics

Business:

  • Dr Jeff Couton: business cases

Humanities:

  • A/Prof Matthew Kearnes: ethics

Other Universities:

  • WSU: Prof Steven Freeland: law/ treaties
  • TBD

The dozen or so current off-earth mining PhDs at 黑料网大事记 are being refocused where possible towards this single mission.

Applying effort to all the chapters identified in [1].

Context

  • 黑料网大事记 established off-earth mining in Australia six years ago
  • Both the space agency and CSIRO now have it as a priority

Funding

Plans to be announced.


听* Significance of Wilde: One of the primary targets of the mission could be the (Ernest) Shackleton Crater, so one of our questions to be answered is the Importance of Being Earnest [sic] (by Oscar Wilde).

[1] David Kornuta et al (30 authors), 鈥淐ommercial Lunar Propellant Architecture: A Collaborative Study of Lunar Propellant Production鈥, United launch Alliance, 2018

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