Beneficiation and extraction of nonterrestrial materials, part 2

A review of options for processing extraterrestrial materials was dominated by industrial materials scientist who tried to identify which processes utilizing space materials could be implemented in the near term. The most practical process seem to us to be the extraction of lunar oxygen and the extraction of metals and ceramics from the residues of the reduction process. The growth of space activity will be accompanied by increased demand for liquid oxygen for each round trip to the Moon. The oxygen and the intermediary product water will be needed for the life support at the base. The reduced metals and ceramics may be considered byproducts or may develop into primary products. Some of the same processes would be directly applicable to recovery of products from asteroids. We also discussed other processes for directly utilizing asteroid metals. Some of the topics covered include beneficiation and oxygen extraction methods, metallurgy, and extraterrestrial cement.