Centennial Challenges is a NASA program of prize contests to stimulate innovation and competition in solar system exploration and ongoing NASA mission areas. The goal is to offer prize money to encourage private individuals, companies and researchers to think about challenging problems and come up with a state-of-the-art solution. NASA has now announced a new challenge, in association with the Florida Space Research Institute. The MoonROx (Moon Regolith Oxygen) challenge will award $250,000 to the first team that can extract breathable oxygen from simulated lunar soil before the prize expires on June 1, 2008:).

Lunar Base Art (Courtesy: NASA Science)The teams must design and construct hardware that can extract at least five kilograms of breathable oxygen from simulated lunar soil during an eight-hour period. The soil simulant, called JSC-1, is derived from volcanic ash. The extraction technologies required are currently beyond our reach, and the teams must reach their goal while operating under equipment and energy constraints.
To establish a lunar base, or to use the moon for future human explorations, using lunar resources efficiently is key. Once oxygen can be extracted from its soil, engineers can construct liveable bases, where (genetically engineered) plants could be grown, and humans can thus live and work for extended periods of time, without being dependent on the Earth for everything. Thus, moon can be a stepping stone to future explorations to Mars and beyond, which will undoubtedly be much harder, and more complex.