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$250,000 prize for extracting oxygen from moondust

NASA has offered a $250,000 prize to any scientist who discovers a way of extracting breathable oxygen from moondust. The competition is the latest in NASA’s "Centennial Challenges" series, which aims to stimulate the development of technologies useful to space exploration.

To claim the MoonROx prize, scientists must develop and demonstrate hardware capable of extracting at least five kilograms of breathable oxygen from a simulated lunar soil made from volcanic ash in an eight-hour period. MoonROx stands for Moon Regolith Oxygen — regolith being the loose layer of rocks and debris covering the surface of a planet or moon.

Entrants have until June 1 2008 to collect the prize fund.

posted by: kyawoo at 02:51 | link | comments |
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