SBIR Phase I:PolyBrick™: Polymer-regolith composite landing pads build from in-situ lunar materials

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enhance exploration and commercial development of the Moon and, eventually, solar system, by lowering the risk of damage to surface and orbital infrastructure from ejected lunar dust during rocket landings and launches. This activity is in the area of material processing/manufacturing in space, and focuses on the space infrastructure (civil works) market sector, similar to roads and airports on Earth. Creating a viable, cost-effective solution to mitigate lunar dust will lower the cost of accessing the lunar surface and accelerate the development of lunar surface infrastructure that is necessary for all aspects of sustainable commercial space development, including mining, manufacturing, construction, habitation, power generation, communications, and in particular, transportation. Facilitating lunar exploration will expand scientific knowledge of the solar system.It will also enhance commercial development that will expand economic opportunities by opening new areas of the economy in space, with inevitable spin-off benefits for life on Earth. In the long term, the capacity to create new areas for habitation on the Moon and throughout the solar system will have profound impacts on human society.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project proposes building lunar landing pads to address the problem of surface dust ejected during rocket landings and launches, which can otherwise damage both nearby and distant infrastructure, including those structures located the other side of the Moon and in orbit. To minimize transport costs from Earth, surface infrastructure must be constructed from local materials as much as possible. Instead of using high-energy processes to harden regolith, this approach will bind it with a high-performance polymer created from lunar volatiles co-located with water-ice in polar regions. This solution reduces mass, cost, and technical risk by leveraging anticipated water-ice mining operations and utilizing discarded volatiles from their operations to produce high-quality polymers.The approach may be sustainable, producing enough material annually to replace worn-out sections of landing pads. Phase I will focus on converting raw volatiles into polymer precursors, fabricating/testing candidate composite materials, and elaborating the concept of operations, through a combination of research, modeling, and laboratory experiments. Information gathered during Phase I will narrow the range of candidate polymers for further consideration, identifying chemical synthesis pathways for more extensive development, and highlighting areas of improvement to maximize commercial success.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.