Page 6/The Battalion/Thursday, March 5, 1987
S
c
A&M researchers receive $60,000 NASA grant
By Debbie Monroe
Reporter
NASA is paying two Texas A&M
University researchers $60,000 to
find a better way to deal with a nasty
problem.
Duncan Hitchens and Ramesh
Kainthla, two Hydrogen Research
Center biochemists who work under
Dr. John Bockris, received a $60,000
grant from the Johnson Space Cen
ter in early February to study the
electrochemical processing of solid
waste.
Hitchens says the space agency
considers waste to be an expensive
problem.
“They’re going to spend a lot of
money building a fourth shuttle, and
one of the aims of this is to facilitate
a permanently manned space sta
tion,” he says. “A lot of its (the shut
tle’s) time is going to be spent haul
ing this stuff back to Earth.
“They could put a lot more valu
in' ''
“Carbon dioxide is pretty poisonous
to humans, but there are ways of re
converting it to oxygen.”
The scientists received their grant
through the Texas Engineering Ex-
$562,000 were funded by the John
son Space Center.
Oran Nicks, director of the Space
Research Center, says the grants al
low scientists to put their minds to
able staff and equipment in the same
space.”
The researchers believe that a re
cycling system can be built to turn
the useless waste into something
valuable. The system would break
the material down into hydrogen
and carbon dioxide by running an
electric current through it.
“Hydrogen is extremely impor
tant in a spacecraft because it’s
burned in devices called fuel cells to
produce electricity,” Hitchens says.
“We've got students here learning new skills and work
ing on new things, and I'd like to believe that some of
the research we're doing will have an impact on socie-
W”
— Oran Nicks, director of the Space Research Center.
“We’ve got students here learning
new skills and working on new
things,” he says, “and I’d like to be
lieve that some of the research we’re
doing will have an impact on socie
ty-”
Nicks and his staff at the Space
Research Center work to find A&M
scientists interested in solving pro-
belms for NASA and commercial
space companies. The research be
ing done by Hitchens and Kainthla is
part of a larger project which Nicks
oversees.
periment Station’s Space Research
Center. In February, nine space-re
lated research projects totaling
work on projects that may have long
term benefits for the American
space program.
The interdisciplinary research
team includes representatives from
biology, chemistry, agriculture, soil
and crop science, and several engi-
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With a working CELSS system
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NASA wouldn’t have to carry
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cility, nor waste products from
station to Earth.
We
haven t seen any space
esigned to use biological
sions
terns,” Nicks says. “They (NASA
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well, but plants, or some formo
ology, may be helpful,”
Hitchens says it’s a very diff
problem, but an exciting one.
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