Processing of lunar soil simulant for space exploration applications

NASA's long-term vision for space exploration includes developing human habitats and conducting scientific investigations on planetary bodies, especially on Moon and Mars. To reduce the level of upmass, processing and utilization of planetary in situ resources is recognized as an important element of this vision. Within this scope and context, we have undertaken a general effort aimed primarily at extracting and refining metals, developing glass, glass-ceramic or traditional ceramic type materials using lunar soil simulants. In this paper we will present the preliminary results on our effort on carbothermal reduction of oxides for elemental extraction and zone refining for obtaining high-purity metals. In addition, we will demonstrate the possibility of developing glasses from lunar soil simulant for fixing the nuclear waste from potential nuclear power generators on planetary bodies. Compositional analysis, X-ray diffraction patterns and differential thermal analysis (DTA) of processed samples are presented. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.