NASA is planning to make water and oxygen on the Moon and Mars by 2020

NASA is forging ahead with plans to make water, oxygen, and hydrogen on the surface of the Moon and Mars. If we ever want to colonize other planets, it is vital that we find a way of extracting these vital gases and liquids from moons and planets, rather than transporting them from Earth (which is prohibitively expensive, due to Earth’s gravity). The current plan is to land a rover on the Moon in 2018 that will try to extract hydrogen, water, and oxygen — and then hopefully, Curiosity’s successor will try to convert the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into oxygen in 2020 when it lands on Mars.

In 2018, NASA hopes to put a rover on the Moon that will carry the RESOLVE (Regolith andEnvironment Science and Oxygen & Lunar Volatile Extraction) science payload. RESOLVE will contain the various tools necessary to carry out in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Basically, RESOLVE will sift through the Moon’s regolith (loose surface soil) and heat them up, looking for traces of hydrogen and oxygen, which can then be combined to make water. There is also some evidence that there’s water ice on the surface of the Moon — RESOLVE will find out for certain by heating the soil and seeing of water vapor emerges.

2150 Interstellar travel is becoming possible

Around this time, various private commercial spacecraft are sent to Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, Wolf 359 and other neighbouring star systems. The fastest of these are capable of achieving 0.08-0.1c (8-10% lightspeed), requiring around 40 years to reach their destination.* A variety of propulsion systems are being utilised – from nuclear pulse propulsion, to solar sail technology, to other more experimental methods.
Most of these vessels are crewless, with only a handful of humans daring enough to attempt such a voyage. However, each craft is equipped with powerful AI, automated systems and robots which do a better job than any human could, in any case.
Protection from incoming meteors is provided by cone-shaped force fields, projected from the front of each craft. This streamlined shape allows such debris to simply drift by without causing any damage.
After several decades of interstellar travel, the majority of probes successfully rendezvous with their destinations. Each returns a treasure trove of data and visual information. Among the many discoveries is a planet similar in size to Earth, with over 90% of its surface covered in liquid water, though no life forms are detected. Another, much larger and rockier world is discovered in the same system, with a highly active geology and volcanism. A host of interesting and unique moons, asteroids, ring systems and other astronomical features are catalogued.
The success of these missions acts as a catalyst, further accelerating the current boom in space travel.


© Luca Oleastri | Dreamstime.com