![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Artist_impression_of_activities_in_a_Moon_Base_preview-1-1024x768.jpg\")
You are looking at the recycling of man-made materials left behind on the lunar surface. What led you to focus your research on this area? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n The idea of having a habitat on the Moon was for a long time one for the distant future, but a few years ago it became apparent that the idea had become more of a serious one. At the same time, space companies such as SpaceX are trying to bring down the cost of launching things into space. <\/p>\n\n However, once you\u2019ve got the costs down, and once you can think about putting a habitat on the Moon, you then have the same issues that we have on Earth: how do you make stuff? How do you use it? How do you reuse it? So I set up a group to work with me on all aspects of how we can make things on the surface of the Moon, drawing on my background in extractive metallurgy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n How do you envision the recycling of materials would be achieved? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n We\u2019re looking at the furnace technology best suited to recycling on the Moon, which uses concentrated solar energy as a source of heat. Ten years ago, I started getting involved with solar thermal energy and I\u2019ve done a lot of research about that here on Earth. One of the very attractive things about solar on the Moon is you get 14 days of constant sunshine \u2013 no clouds. We don\u2019t know the exact timings for getting it off the ground, but there is already serious investment in the area and we\u2019re working with various companies specialising in lunar resources. <\/p>\n\n What would the challenges be in doing this? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n When you start looking closely, you realise there are special challenges associated with the Moon. For example, when you recycle aluminium you typically have various impurities. So when we melt aluminium to get rid of some of those things, we then try to get those impurities removed by putting bubbles through, trying to accelerate them to the surface. But we have to take into consideration that gravity on the Moon is one sixth of Earth\u2019s, so the processes that work well here won\u2019t work as well on the Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n\n However, the Moon has a high vacuum that could work to our advantage. In metallurgy there are certain times when you want a vacuum to get high purity. For example, you might want to remove dissolved gases and it\u2019s common to use a high vacuum to do this. However, we don\u2019t want to keep flying crucibles up every time we want to melt something, so we will have to make crucibles with the materials already on the Moon. How we do this is something my team is working on.<\/span><\/p>\n\n What could a consequence be if we didn\u2019t resolve this issue of leftover materials on the Moon? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n There\u2019s an ethical aspect to lunar recycling, but there\u2019s also an archaeological human history aspect to what\u2019s left on the Moon from the Apollo missions; these are incredibly important sites to humanity and I think we should start to think about how to preserve those artefacts. It\u2019s unlikely that leftover bits of metal will cause damage to the Moon, because it\u2019s not going to rust and probably not going to contaminate anything. But I think we should start taking some control from an aesthetic perspective and the long-term viability of having people on the Moon. <\/p>\n\n When do you think we\u2019re likely to see lunar recycling become a reality? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n In terms of timelines, we\u2019re looking a little bit further into the future. Rather than fly a full-scale solar furnace to the Moon right now, we could get a solar concentrator, like a Fresnel lens [a flat lens made from a series of concentric rings] system set up. On the Moon, there\u2019s no cloud \u2013 just brilliant sunshine. You could use that for making ceramics, melting metals, for all sorts of thermal activity. I think that we could see that happen in the next three or four years. In terms of the recycling side of things, I think that\u2019s more like 10 years. <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n Geoffrey Brooks is a professor of engineering at Swimburne University of Technology<\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n An interview with Professor Geoffrey Brooks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":34085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"98","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"98","purple_seq_number":"1","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"1","purple_source_article":"article_98-1.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_98-1.xml","purple_source_issue":"August-2022","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"August-2022","purple_external_id":"August-2022-98-1","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"August-2022-98-1","purple_issue_code":"|0000086555||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086555||","purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.207","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"075fab74-0a21-4201-866a-899d6c41c40c","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[14],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview.jpg",401,401,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview.jpg",401,401,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview.jpg",401,401,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview.jpg",401,401,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview.jpg",401,401,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"An interview with Professor Geoffrey Brooks","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33826"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34277,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33826\/revisions\/34277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/07\/Geoffrey-Brooks_preview-1.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n