Wood at the heart of Moon pipeline project

Aberdeen business Wood is at the heart of a project which may pave the way for a permanently-manned base on the Moon.

The company has teamed up with US firm Lunar Resources to design a crucial pipeline.

It would carry oxygen from an extraction site on the Moon’s south pole to a proposed lunar base.

According to Wood Business Development Director Stuart Turl, the project is one everyone at the firm wants to be involved in.

He said: “Not satisfied with pipeline design on Earth, we’ve gone slightly further afield. There’s real cutting-edge work that’s happening at the moment.

“I think it would be an interesting site visit, put it that way.”

Wood has managed projects to date involving a total of more than 372,800 miles of pipelines.

Mark Netzel, Senior Vice-President for Upstream and Midstream at the company, said: “To bring our pipeline expertise to the lunar surface is incredibly exciting for us, from both the potential impact it could have on lunar development and the technical challenges we must solve to implement a project this advanced.”

Lunar Resources is a corporate spin-out from various Nasasponsored technology development programmes.

Elliot Carol, the Houston firm’s Chief Executive, said it was imperative for America to develop industrial infrastructure on the Moon in advance of a permanent presence.

He added: “We are thrilled to team with Wood on the development of the LSPoP (lunar south pole oxygen pipeline)”.

Lunar Resources Chief Scientist Peter Curreri said: “The extraction of oxygen on the Moon is essential for lunar operations. However, the transportation of oxygen gas is a big challenge.

“We estimate the use of robotic rovers to transport gaseous oxygen in gas tanks would use more energy to transport the oxygen than extracting it.”

Matthew Laborde, a Senior Pipeline Engineering Consultant with Lunar Resources, said the environment of the Moon is “night and day, compared to Earth”.

He added: “The reduced gravity and vacuum environment will force the team to rewrite the rules on designing pipelines.”

Wood and Lunar Resources have been awarded funding under Nasa’s Innovative Advanced Concepts programme for an initial nine-month feasibility study.

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