Brown Bag Seminar Series with presentation by Chris Buelke on September 15, 2016

The fall semester Brown Bag Seminar Series features graduate students providing presentations on their current research and recent internships.

This series of presentations will be held in the Space Studies Library at 12:30 PM.  Lunch will be served.

Chris Buelke will present on Thursday, September 15th.  The title of his presentation is “Turning Moon Rocks into Spacecraft LOX.”

About the topic:  Since the early 2000’s, many papers have been proposed and ideas conceived of for how to get back to the Moon. There are numerous reasons for doing so, but one in particular focuses on obtaining resources in the form of liquid oxygen (LOX) to be used as fuel in spacecraft. Obtaining this LOX can be achieved by simply melting and splitting harvested ice, or by extracting oxygen from minerals on the lunar surface. A NASA study conducted by Eagleworks in the late 1980’s investigated the extraction of oxygen by reducing ilmenite with hydrogen. While the study showed promise, it is now outdated and could benefit from an update.
This presentation investigates the modernization of that study and additionally compares it with two other reactions to approach an optimal method for producing LOX. A comprehensive review of the current state of harvesting, beneficiation and extraction equipment, plus the support hardware required for them, was also accomplished by analyzing both recently published literature and the state of technological maturity of the hardware in question

About the presenter:   Chris Buelke is a current Master’s student in the Space Studies program at UND for two years running. He plans to graduate in the spring after completing his thesis on water purification technology. He hails from Wisconsin where he obtained his B.S. in Applied Science – Nanoscience from UW-Stout.