Hydrogen on the Moon: Extraction, Storage, Monetisation

The moon's poles can potentially provide water and in-space propellant.
Credit: James Vaughan

Turning polar volatiles into bankable services

If oxygen is the lunar workhorse, hydrogen is the versatile specialist. It’s a feedstock for propellants, a buffer for energy storage, a reactant for metallurgy, and a partner for life-support chemistry. The near-term opportunity lies where hydrogen’s properties earn a premium: fuel cells for night-side power, thermal control for equipment that cycles through harsh extremes, and propellant blending when missions require high specific impulse.

The technical story is nuanced—cryogenic storage, insulation, boil-off management and transfer protocols become operational disciplines rather than one-off engineering feats. Startups will treat hydrogen more like a data centre utility than a commodity: uptime, quality and safety are paramount, and customers pay for predictability. That mindset aligns with the dissertation’s emphasis on platform strategies: repeatable processes, telemetry-rich systems, and contracts wrapped around service levels, not just hardware.

Market entry begins at polar sites where prospecting, power and mobility converge. Buyers are the usual cislunar suspects—lander primes, depot operators, surface infrastructure teams—but the monetisation logic is broader. Hydrogen capacity can be reserved as “assured energy” for rovers and habitats; it can be bundled with power-purchase agreements that smooth generation variability; it can even be offered as a contingency layer for thermal emergencies. The channels are integrators and mission architects who want fewer moving parts; validation comes from running closed loop trials where extraction, storage and draw-downs are measured against agreed envelopes. Over time, hardware gives way to contracts defined by kilograms available when and where promised—bankable services that lenders and insurers understand.