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China's new space tech could help Astronauts survive on the moon without resupply missions

China's new space tech could help Astronauts survive on the moon without resupply missions

Time of India17-07-2025
Researchers in China have discovered a new way to make the Moon more livable. The team extracts water from lunar soil. They use it to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and fuel. This process could make Moon missions more efficient. It will also reduce costs. The technology uses sunlight and lunar soil to produce essential resources.
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Researchers in China say they have discovered a new way to make the Moon more livable. The team was able to extract water from lunar soil and use it to convert carbon dioxide (CO₂) into oxygen and chemicals that can be used as fuel. The findings were published in the Cell Press journal Joule.Lu Wang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, called the results 'magical' and said the one-step process could make future Moon missions more efficient and less expensive.Sending water to the Moon is incredibly costly. According to the study, it costs around US$83,000 (about A$126,000) to ship just one gallon of water into space. Each astronaut needs about four gallons per day. That makes long-term Moon missions hard to sustain.The new technology will solve this problem by using the Moon's own soil and sunlight to produce essential resources.The scientists created a system that uses sunlight to heat lunar soil and release water. This water is then used to break down CO₂, the gas astronauts exhale, into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. These gases can then be used to make fuel and oxygen.This process uses a technique called photothermal catalysis, which turns sunlight into heat to drive chemical reactions.While the lab results are promising, real-world use on the Moon will be much harder. The Moon's surface experiences extreme temperatures, strong radiation, and low gravity, which could affect how well the system works outside the lab.Also, lunar soil is not the same everywhere, and the amount of CO₂ that astronauts produce may not be enough to meet all needs for fuel and oxygen.The researchers say more work is needed to improve the technology's performance and to make it practical for space missions.For years, space agencies have talked about building a base on the Moon to support missions deeper into space. This breakthrough could bring that goal one step closer. But before humans can live and work on the Moon, scientists will need to overcome several technical and environmental challenges.
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The Indian science community is currently waging a war against the veil around ISRO-supported operations, fighting with memes, personal anecdotes and a carefully crafted list of its work, which has remained hidden from public discourse. Many Indian social media accounts, which dedicatedly post space updates from ISRO, said the campaign started with the aim to highlight the lack of PR from the space agency. The issue also extended to big-ticket missions, such as the recent partnership between ISRO and US-based Axiom Space to jointly send Indian Air Force group captain Shubhanshu Shukla to the International Space Station (ISS). Experts said that the visibility of ISRO missions had improved over the last decade. However, they added, the burden of information dissemination remained limited to media houses and independent science communicators, who often obtained information outside of official statements. 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Over the last few years, the ESA, China National Space Administration and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have also caught on. The agencies realised the global space domain was not only about what happened inside the laboratories, but that a significant portion of their space programme success also depended on how they presented themselves. For instance, the Japanese agency has been organising open houses, town meetings and laboratory tours to help promote the work happening at those sites. Mobilising interest in space When his 16-year-old nephew asked Kavuluru where he could find the link to a documentary on the ISRO Astrosat and Aditya-L1 missions—something on the lines of NASA's 'Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey' and 'Apollo-11'—the former ISRO scientist was hit with a sensation of embarrassment. 'He wanted to study how ISRO does deep space missions. I had no response because no such documentaries exist … Why is this the case? 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