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UT San Antonio moon rock researchers seeking the ideal recipe to build lunar bases
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Exploration Architecture Corporation founder and CEO Sam Ximenes poses Wednesday, May 19, 2021, in his Port San Antonio lab with some of the basalt powder with which his company works. XArc received a $50 million NASA small business grant to evaluate lunar landing pad construction using technology to melt moon soil, which contains a large amount of basalt, to build landing pads for spacecraft.William Luther, Staff / William Luther
Making strong bricks on Earth is hard. Making strong bricks on the moon is harder.
But some researchers in a University of Texas at San Antonio laboratory are working to make it possible. They’re studying how to melt moon rocks, and the knowledge they glean could someday help humans build lunar outposts.
Astroport Space Technologies, awarded a NASA Technology Research contract for lunar construction
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SAN ANTONIO, May 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Astroport Space Technologies, Inc. was awarded a NASA Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer contract (STTR) for development of its lunar regolith melting technology for constructing landing pads on the Moon.
(PRNewsfoto/Astroport Space Technologies, Inc.)
Astroport and its research institution partner, The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will jointly develop technology for an Induction Furnace-Nozzle for Forming and Placing Lunar Regolith Bricks for Landing Pad Construction . NASA selected 289 small businesses and 47 research institutions to receive Phase I funding for its
SpaceX has purchased two deep-water oil rigs off the Texas Gulf Coast to someday use as sea-going spaceports for their Starship spacecraft. The commercial space firm, through an entity called Lonestar Mineral Development, bought the platforms from offshore drilling company Valaris in July, according to public filings. Several media reports say Lonestar Mineral Development bought the rigs that were headed to the scrapyard for $3.5 million each, a.