Production of Methane from the Lunar Regolith for Use as Propellant

We consider here the production of methane from the lunar regolith, for use as rocket propellant. Eagle Engineering described a process for producing hydrogen and oxygen from the lunar regolith; however, the amount of regolith needed to be processed and the energy needed for the processing were quite high. Methane, if it can be produced, has advantages with respect to the use of lunar hydrogen in that it is more easily stored and should be less easily lost from the production process, although it provides lower performance in rocket engines than hydrogen. It is well known that the carbon concentration of the lunar regolith is low, but at 100 ppm, there is about as much useful carbon as there is hydrogen, which has an average abundance of 50 ppm. Our study shows that significantly less regolith needs to be processed if methane is produced instead of hydrogen.