Scientists start making air out of lunar dust as part of plan to live on the Moon

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The ESA hopes that the new plant can provide practical ways of creating that using the dust on the Moon's surface – known as regolith – in a way that could one day be transported there. “Being able to acquire oxygen from resources found on the Moon would obviously be hugely useful for future lunar settlers, both for breathing and in the local production of rocket fuel.” Before the technology could be taken to the surface, it will need tweaking to get it ready for use in the harsh environment of the Moon. “And now we have the facility in operation we can look into fine-tuning it, for instance by reducing the operating temperature, eventually designing a version of this system that could one day fly to the Moon to be operated there," said ESA research fellow Alexandre Meurisse in a statement. “Accordingly we’re shifting our engineering approach to a systematic use of lunar resources in-situ.We are working with our colleagues in the Human and Robotics Exploration Directorate, European industry and academia to provide top class scientific approaches and key enabling technologies like this one, towards a sustained human presence on the Moon and maybe one day Mars.”