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There's lots of oxygen on the Moon, but it's locked up in aluminum and silicon oxides as rocks. In principle if you had a lot of electricity you could do electr

There's lots of oxygen on the Moon, but it's locked up in aluminum and silicon oxides as rocks. In principle if you had a lot of electricity you could do electrolysis on melted moon rocks to recover pure oxygen and metals, both very useful for living on the Moon. There's definitely not a breathable atmosphere of oxygen on the Moon though.

perl4ever 5y ago
This would probably be better asked on a fiction worldbuilding forum, but I wonder what would happen if somehow enough oxygen and nitrogen was suddenly dumped on the moon to constitute an earthlike atmosphere. Obviously in the long run, there's neither enough gravity nor a magnetosphere to maintain it, right? But on a human timescale, what would it be like? Titan proves that even when it's very, very cold, a thick (it seems to be thicker than Earth's) nitrogen atmosphere can last for some time.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Air is dense because of the quantity of atmosphere above you being pulled down by gravity. I intuitively suspect, without doing any numbers, that no matter how much nitrogen and oxygen you could theoretically scrounge up, there won’t be enough gravity to make air pressure high enough to be of any use to human life. Also now that you have some air, you would have to start being concerned about air temperature. It seems unlikely that a moon atmosphere would coincidentally have a temperature range useful for humans.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    >I intuitively suspect, without doing any numbers, that no matter how much nitrogen and oxygen you could theoretically scrounge up, there won’t be enough gravity to make air pressure high enough to be of any use to human life. Since mass can only increase gravity, I think that must be wrong regardless of specific numbers. I guess the same amount of nitrogen, etc. as is in a column of atmosphere on earth would have to weigh less, but that's not a constraint. There can be more! In support of this, here is a similar question on stackexchange: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/26639/how-to-blanket-moon-with-a-permanent-atmosphere https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/26639/how-... In my opinion, (because it agrees with my prejudices) the best answer is not the accepted one and is at the bottom of the page (Foskey). "It is also incorrect to say that the atmosphere could never be thick enough to breathe. Titan has a surface gravity similar to the moon, and has an atmosphere thicker than the earth's. Because the gravity is less, it takes a higher column of air to achieve that pressure, but it can be achieved." "Part of the reason Titan has been able to retain that atmosphere over the history of the solar system is that it is much colder than the moon, and is less affected by the solar wind since it's much farther from the sun. But, again, time scales matter. I have not found a source estimating the exact timeframe for atmospheric loss, but I recall reading that it would take thousands of years or more." There is also a link to this essay: https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/terraforming-the-moon-it-would-be-a-lot-like-florida.html https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/terraforming-the-moon-i...

perl4ever 5y ago

This would probably be better asked on a fiction worldbuilding forum, but I wonder what would happen if somehow enough oxygen and nitrogen was suddenly dumped on the moon to constitute an earthlike atmosphere. Obviously in the long run, there's neither enough gravity nor a magnetosphere to maintain it, right? But on a human timescale, what would it be like? Titan proves that even when it's very, very cold, a thick (it seems to be thicker than Earth's) nitrogen atmosphere can last for some time.

simondotau 5y ago
Air is dense because of the quantity of atmosphere above you being pulled down by gravity. I intuitively suspect, without doing any numbers, that no matter how much nitrogen and oxygen you could theoretically scrounge up, there won’t be enough gravity to make air pressure high enough to be of any use to human life. Also now that you have some air, you would have to start being concerned about air temperature. It seems unlikely that a moon atmosphere would coincidentally have a temperature range useful for humans.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  >I intuitively suspect, without doing any numbers, that no matter how much nitrogen and oxygen you could theoretically scrounge up, there won’t be enough gravity to make air pressure high enough to be of any use to human life. Since mass can only increase gravity, I think that must be wrong regardless of specific numbers. I guess the same amount of nitrogen, etc. as is in a column of atmosphere on earth would have to weigh less, but that's not a constraint. There can be more! In support of this, here is a similar question on stackexchange: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/26639/how-to-blanket-moon-with-a-permanent-atmosphere https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/26639/how-... In my opinion, (because it agrees with my prejudices) the best answer is not the accepted one and is at the bottom of the page (Foskey). "It is also incorrect to say that the atmosphere could never be thick enough to breathe. Titan has a surface gravity similar to the moon, and has an atmosphere thicker than the earth's. Because the gravity is less, it takes a higher column of air to achieve that pressure, but it can be achieved." "Part of the reason Titan has been able to retain that atmosphere over the history of the solar system is that it is much colder than the moon, and is less affected by the solar wind since it's much farther from the sun. But, again, time scales matter. I have not found a source estimating the exact timeframe for atmospheric loss, but I recall reading that it would take thousands of years or more." There is also a link to this essay: https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/terraforming-the-moon-it-would-be-a-lot-like-florida.html https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/terraforming-the-moon-i...