Water resources on the Moon are a critical component of international strategies for exploration of the solar system and space-based economic development. Liquid water is essential for human life support and propellant generation. Extreme Lunar conditions of near-vacuum and low temperature preclude the natural presence of liquid water; and they provide the thermodynamic context for water occurrence and its potential extraction. Ice crystals were observed by LCROSS and are inferred to reside in pore spaces of lunar regolith or at the surface in places. Any system proposed for lunar ice mining by induced sublimation needs to address potential vapor loss to the ambient near-vacuum; regolith cohesiveness; low regolith thermal conductivity; negligible sublimation rates below-200K; low rates of vapor advection-diffusion through porous regolith; and pressurization due to sublimation that causes redeposition. All of these obstacles have potential solutions with available technologies, but they must be designed within power availability constraints and with the potential to scale up to the resource needs of a growing space economy.

来源平台：ACTA ASTRONAUTICA