According to planetary scientist John Grant from Southern Cross University, the Moon's surface regolith alone holds enough oxygen to sustain eight billion people for 100,000 years—if we master extraction techniques. Researchers worldwide are advancing these methods.
Space agencies like NASA, its partners, China, and Russia are planning permanent lunar outposts. While initial missions can ship supplies from Earth, long-term sustainability demands using local resources, including oxygen.
Oxygen from the Moon could create breathable air and rocket fuel. But where is it? Not in the thin exosphere of hydrogen, neon, and argon—it's bound in the regolith, the fine dust and rock layer covering the surface.
Regolith consists mainly of silica, aluminum, iron, and magnesium oxides, with oxygen making up about 45%. Electrolysis breaks these bonds, much like aluminum production on Earth, but here oxygen is the primary product and metals are byproducts.
Though energy-intensive and equipment-heavy, progress is underway. Belgian startup Space Applications Services is building experimental reactors, with one potentially launching to the Moon in 2025 via ESA mission.
How much oxygen is available? Grant analyzed accessible regolith, excluding deeper rocks.
Each cubic meter holds 1.4 tons of minerals, including 630 kg of oxygen. At 800g daily per person, that's over two years of oxygen per cubic meter.
Assuming 10-meter average regolith depth and full extraction, it could supply eight billion people for 100,000 years, per Grant's calculations in The Conversation.
