Blue Origin Says It Can Turn Moon Dust into Solar Power

As NASA and its partners prepare to return to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years, humanity’s goals for our lone natural satellite are decidedly more ambitious than they were in the Apollo era. For one, leading government agencies and private aerospace firms alike are openly talking about the possibility of a sustained human presence on the Moon: a colony for research, industry, or stepping even further into space.

That’s no small task, of course. Our first space pilgrims will need everything we need on Earth — food, water, shelter, communication, and so forth — only more than 200,000 miles away and available, for now, solely on the back of a spaceship. One hurdle, however, could apparently be cleared with far fewer headaches than might be expected, according to scientists at Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company.

In a blog post, Blue Origin researchers said they had developed functioning prototype solar energy cells and transmission wires from materials in simulated regolith: the combination of dust and loose rock that covers the lunar surface.

Under the technique named Blue Alchemist, a reactor runs an electrical current through regolith to efficiently melt it down into component parts, including iron, silicon, and aluminum, as well as oxygen, a byproduct that would obviously be valuable on the Moon for other reasons.

The silicon is pure enough to make solar cells without the toxic chemicals typically used on Earth, and the method also creates the glass needed to cover the cells. The technology, Blue Origin reports, can be scaled “indefinitely” and would eliminate power as a constraint on prolonged lunar missions.

Of course, the ability to make solar cells without water, toxic materials, or carbon emissions would also be of interest here on Earth — just the latest example of research from the space program making an impact far beyond its intended target.