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STSF_BluRox

Can you get Blood from a Stone? How about O2?

Ok....all you budding scientists out there. $250,000 up for grabs, if you can determine a way to extract Oxygen from moon rocks. Yes...it's for real and

you can check it out at MoonRox contest

Edited by STSF_BluRox

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MoonRox... posted by BluRox ... Fascinating... ;)

 

*makes like an endangered tribble and scurries off...at best possible tribble speed*

 

ok, serriously though, it is interesting how nasa's tapping out for inovative ideas via contests. They can host multiple inovation contests, get some inginuitive results in far less time than it'd take them to manually research and develop each one them selves :P

Edited by TerrasJadeonar

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Potassium nitrate (KNO3)...interesting indeed.

Considering that potassium nitrate is also used as a fertilizer and if you find it in moon rock why not just bring a plant, breath at it (you'd get CO2 from your breath) and voila you'll get breathable oxygen. Ok I admit this suggestion does have its weak points.

Ok now I have some serious comments about what Vatric said. The thing with potassium nitrate is that it can be reduced to potassium nitrite (KNO2;which is toxic to some degree):

2 KNO3 ->2 KNO2 + O2...if you're lucky that's what would happen. Usually you should get the oxygen by heating the potassium nitrate above the melting point which is at 607°Kelvin (334°C). Ok now here's my problem...if it was that easy somebody must have thought of it before. Another problem is...how do you get moon rocks to get that hot. And the last question I have... do we know or just assume that there is potassium nitrate in moon rock?

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Well I suppose that it's about as toxic as sodium nitrite which is used in the food industrie to

1. make the meat look better (it makes it look fresh)

2. prevent the growth of some bacteria. (the same bacteria by the way that produces the so called botulinum toxin= Botox, usually infection with that bacteria is considered a medical emergency and all forms of infection can be fatal... I'm still wondering if getting rid of a wrinkle or two is worth the risk...)

Now here's where it gets interesting sodium nitrite is not that toxic I think BUT the formula (NaNO2) is pretty similar to that of an explosive...sodium nitrate (NaSO3). And the other problem is that when it is heated up it reacts with amino acids to so called nitrosamines which are hightly carcinogenic. Doesn't sound like humans care too much about toxic pollution either.

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