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Clip description
Carbotek is an American firm working on a technique to extract the oxygen locked up in the surface of the moon. They are working with NASA to explore this technique as a future source of radiation protection from solar flares, and to make cement so that structures can be built on the moon itself.
Curator’s notes
Since the 1970s, there has been little interest in putting humans on the moon, possibly because most of NASA’s research and development moved to Mars and beyond. However there has always been lots of interest in mining the moon’s surface, including this idea of extracting the life-giving support of oxygen and water that is locked up in the moonscape. So with NASA’s support, a private lunar oxygen production plant is set up to mine oxygen from the moon.
This fascinating item is aided by some of the fantastic space photography that NASA makes freely available to all filmmakers. This reminds us of the longer term implications for all humankind when Armstrong and Aldrin took those first steps on the moon’s surface in 1969.
