CLEVELAND — A team at NASA’s Glenn Research Center has developed a new material which could allow for off-planet manufacturing. If effective, it would give astronauts the tools needed to make a long-term lunar base more sustainable.
Research chemical engineer Allison Christy and her team of summer interns – Tyler Klinchuch, Ethan Bilodeau and Emma Levenson – developed the material after mixing a plastic with simulated moon dust.
Christy said her material is unique as astronauts wouldn’t have to ship polymers off-planet. Instead, the polymers, or plastics, are sourced using a special bacterium that grows plastic…