It’d take a ton of energy but I suppose it’s theoretically possible.

The article basically says that moon rock/dust are oxides which have oxygen to extract—we can easily figure out the Gibbs free energy required to break apart silicates (for example) into oxygen, but I can almost guarantee we won’t like the answer.

I estimate it will be on the order of thousands of square meters+ of solar panels to sustain a human, which doesn’t seem sustainable at all. That doesn’t include what to do with the leftover base materials or catalysts.

Bringing photosynthesizing plants into the ecosystem in such a way that they could survive it makes much more sense based on first principles.

Moon’s top layer has enough oxygen to sustain 8B people for 100k years (https://theconversation.com/the-moons-top-layer-alone-has-en...)

189 points|samizdis|23 hours ago|200 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29196304

and what happens after 100k years? do billions simply suffocate and die? Seems like a kick the can down the road sort of plan. lol.