They have in common the initial vowel of the country: India, Italy. But also the observation of the Moon. Yesterday India had success with its Vikram lander; Italy is studying how to make people stay the man on the moon As long as possible. The four countries that have so far planted flags on the satellite have never faced this possibility. An extraordinary possibility, linked to the human need for oxygen. Man without oxygen cannot stay out of the earth. So how long does it take to fix the problem? Is five years enough? It seems so, according to the oracle project (Oxygen Retrieval Asset by Carbothermal-reduction in Lunar Environment) Italian doc, in which the Italian Space Agency and the Milan Polytechnic work. It is another interest of our country for space after the successes of well-known astronauts. In the space race, Italy has carved out a parallel lane to the one that makes curious and amusing machines walk.
Asi and the University have signed an agreement to launch by 2028 a demonstrator. They're working on a plant that extracts oxygen from lunar regolith. Regolith is basically the fragmented rocks that cover the lunar surface. Experiments in this sense have already been carried out in the laboratory by the ASTRA group of the Milan Polytechnic. In fact, our researchers are devoted to history almost as much as the first man who set foot on the moon back in 1969. Surely there will not be one man but a team.
Strategic objectives and industrial partners
ASI's goals are lofty, to validate Oracle on the Moon within ten years. There aren't many, given the space programs of the big countries. “In Situ Resources Utilization, ie the extraction and exploitation of resources on site, is one key ability for sustainable exploration like what we are planning for the Moon,” he says Raffaele Mugnuolo Head of Exploration Unit, Orbiting and Surface Infrastructures of the Italian Space Agency. "In this sense - he continues - we count that the Oracle project will prove to be of global interest in a future perspective and that it will allow Italy, among the first in the world, to possess a strategic technology".
To travel The demonstrator could be entrusted to one of the commercial flights under development. Too early to think about Elon Musk what about his money? Maybe. In any case, the project also goes beyond the two state bodies. The development foresees the participation of industrial partners who, we hope, will be able to step forward. Basically we are talking about a "virtuous path of technological research and development that demonstrates how innovation can be realized through synergistic actions of complementary realities such as the University, the Italian Space Agency and, in the future, the national industrial sector" he concludes Michele Lavagna, Scientific Responsible of the Project for the Politecnico di Milano. No rush, in short, time will prove Italy right.
