It looks like NASA is also experimenting with microwaving. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/07oct_microwave/ http://science.nasa.gov/s

It looks like NASA is also experimenting with microwaving. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/07oct_microwave/ http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/07... Best of all, microwave extraction can be done on the spot. And it requires no excavation -- no heavy equipment for drilling into the hard-frozen lunar surface. At least 95 percent of the water added to the simulant was extracted (vaporized out of the soil) with 2 minutes of microwaving.