These Companies Are Making Solar Cells Out of Fake Moon Dirt

The idea of using dirt on the Moon to manufacture solar cells, which could power a permanent human settlement, may seem outlandish, but two companies say they've made big progress on that front: they each say they've already made solar cells using fake Moon dirt. From a report: Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin says it's been making solar cells this way since 2021 but just made that information public in a blog post on Friday. Separately, Lunar Resources, which aims to develop technologies for the "large-scale industrialization of Space," told The Verge in a call today that it's been doing the same for the last couple of years. Each company still has to make an enormous leap: from crafting solar cells out of fake dirt in Earth-bound labs to accomplishing the same thing on the harsh surface of the Moon. But this is a dream decades in the making. And if their technologies succeed, they could help make it possible to build outposts on the Moon. The idea of tapping the Moon's resources to support human settlements, called in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) in technical speak, has only recently moved out of the realm of science fiction. Now, with its Artemis program, NASA is looking to establish "the first long-term presence on the Moon."

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