Ultra High Temperature Materials For Lunar Processing

Because oxygen is essential to both life support and propulsion, the ability to extract oxygen from lunar soil (a.k.a. dust or regolith) is a critical component in the development of space exploration. A lunar factory producing up to 50 times its own weight of oxygen would revolutionize how all countries access and utilize resources available in outer space. Packer Engineering was awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from NASA to design such a device and was successful in its development. In order for the component design to be successful, the Packer Engineering design team needed to find vessel materials that could withstand high temperatures, survive in a highly-reactive environment, and possess the longevity needed for semi-autonomous operation. Out of the 18 students hired under the educational summer intern program at Packer, one student undertook the task to survey the world's best knowledge in ultra-high temperature materials (> 2000 o K), and integrated this data into the system model for a device called the "Dust Roaster". In 2007, the Dust Roaster was developed by a diverse team of engineers and scientists under the Space Grant Consortium Fellowship. Through the unique partnership of professors, engineers, and interns, an innovative solution was generated to extract oxygen from lunar soil. The result of this study is a body of information which has not previously been published, and the student is currently working to prepare a seminal paper on the results of her research. This paper will explore how the overall structure of the summer intern program overlapped on-going research projects and led to a deep synthesis of technical information from a senior pursuing a BSE degree in Multidisciplinary Engineering.