Space resources 101

The physics and chemistry first. What is actually up there, how you get it out, and what has already been demonstrated.

Start here: ISRU basics: why living off the land is the whole business

1. 
   ISRU basics: why living off the land is the whole business

   In-situ resource utilization, explained from the mass budget up. Start here if you read nothing else.
2. 
   How mining on the Moon and Mars would actually work

   Find it, dig it, cook it, use it. The chemistry has been demonstrated. Prospecting is the bottleneck.
3. 
   Lunar water ice, explained

   Where the Moon's ice is, how we know it's there, and the one unknown that decides whether it's worth mining.
4. 
   Lunar regolith: the most common resource on the Moon is the dirt

   What Moon soil is made of, why it's mostly oxygen by weight, and what makes it miserable to handle.
5. 
   Mars regolith chemistry: perchlorate, ice and the toxic-soil problem

   Martian soil is chemically more interesting than the Moon's and also more hostile. Here's what the landers found.
6. 
   What MOXIE actually proved, and what it didn't

   122 grams of oxygen on Mars, read carefully. The scale-up gap from a toaster-sized demo to a propellant plant.

Other reading paths

• Break in: join the mission (10 reads)
• The money (5 reads)
• Rules of the road (3 reads)
• The race to the south pole (7 reads)