![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/spacesettlementprogress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-2.png?resize=525,295&ssl=1\")
Jeff Bezos\u2019 new initiative called Blue Alchemist<\/a> made a splash last month boasting that the team had made photovoltaic cells, cover glass and aluminum wire from lunar regolith simulant. This is an impressive accomplishment if they have defined the end-to-end process which (with refinements for flight readiness) would essentially provide a turnkey system to fabricate solar arrays to generate power on the Moon. The announcement claimed that the approach \u201c\u2026can scale indefinitely, eliminating power as a constraint anywhere on the Moon.\u201d Actually, this may not be possible at first for a single installation as surface based solar arrays can only collect sunlight during the lunar day and would have to charge batteries for use during the 14 day lunar night, unless they were located at the Peaks of Eternal Light<\/a> near the Moon\u2019s south pole. But if scaling up manufacturing is possible, coupled with production of transmission wire as described, a network of solar power stations in lower latitudes could be connected to distribute power where it is needed during the lunar night.<\/p>\n Very few details were revealed about the design outputs of the end products (not surprisingly) in Blue Origin\u2019s announcement, particularly the \u201cworking prototype\u201d solar cell. An image of the component was provided but it was unclear if the process fabricated the cells into a solar array or if the energy conversion efficiency was comparable to current state of the art (around 21%). Nor do we know how massive the manufacturing equipment would be, how much periodic maintenance is needed or if humans are required in the process. Still, if a turnkey manufacturing plant could be placed on the Moon and it\u2019s output was solar arrays sourced from in situ materials, it would significantly reduce the costs of lunar settlements by not having to transport the power generation equipment from Earth. This particular process has the added benefit of producing oxygen as a byproduct, a valuable resource for life support and propulsion.<\/p>\n Research into production of solar cells on the Moon from in situ materials is not new. NASA was looking into it<\/a> as recently as 2005 and there are studies even dating back to 1989<\/a>. Blue\u2019s process produces iron, silicon, and aluminum via electrolysis of melted regolith, using an electrical current to separate these useful elements from the oxygen to which they are chemically bound. Solar cells are produced by vapor deposition of the silicon. The older studies referenced above proposed similar processes. <\/p>\n It would be interesting to perform an economic analysis comparing the cost of a solar power system supplied from Earth by a company focusing on reducing launch costs (say, SpaceX) with that of a company like Blue Origin that fabricated the equipment from lunar materials. Peter Hague has done just that in a blog post on Planetocracy<\/a> using his mass value metric<\/a>. <\/p>\n Hague runs through the numbers comparing SpaceX\u2019s predicted cost per kilogram delivered to the Moon by Starship with that of Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn. At current estimates the former is 5 times cheaper than the latter. Thus, to best Starship in mass value, Blue Alchemist would have to produce 5kg of solar panels for every 1kg of equipment delivered to the Moon, after which it would be the economic winner. Siting a recent analysis of lunar in situ resource utilization<\/a> by Francisco J. Guerrero-Gonzalez and Paul Zabel (Technical University of Munich and German Aerospace Center (DLR), respectively) predicting comparable mass output rates, Hague believes this estimate is reasonable.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/spacesettlementprogress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-1.png?resize=525,463&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/spacesettlementprogress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-2.png?resize=525,393&ssl=1\")