Peter Schubert, a director at Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy, will give a special seminar. He also is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

ABSTRACT

Long duration space architectures that leverage in-space resources can approach selfsufficiency if there is a high leverage in the mass of goods or services produced relative to launch mass. This talk will explore three complementary research thrusts in the field of in situ resource utilization (ISRU) applied to the generation of power and the storage of energy on the lunar surface. Experimental results will be presented from an apparatus flown in the Vomit Comet, from a hydrocyclone for mineral beneficiation, and from a unique solution for hydrogen storage - all designed for a 1/6 g vacuum environment, using materials already extant on the Moon. These innovations can provide ample electric power and heat for human settlements to survive the lunar night. A second generation of technology can support fast, safe round-trip missions to Main Belt asteroids to retrieve additional elements needed for independence from Earth.

BIOGRAPHY

Peter Schubert received his Ph.D. from Purdue under a GM Fellowship, and returned to Delphi Electronics & Safety to become a Technical Fellow and chairman of the Technology Council. He is currently a professor in the Purdue School of Engineering & Technology at IUPUI, where he also serves as Director of the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy. Dr. Schubert is the faculty advisor for SEDS@IUPUI, and is supervising a team of 13 students pursuing the BIG Idea competition for extracting and printing metals from lunar regolith. He was the PI on a NASA SBIR, Phase 1 and Phase 2, and has been PI on projects from the DOD, DOE, NSF, and USDA. Schubert holds 43 patents, of which 11 are related to ISRU. He has a textbook on this topic and actively publishes at IAC conferences and in space journals. Much of this work accelerated after he co-sponsored a INSGC research project with Purdue AAE, and also served as a panelist for Purdue SEDS alongside NASA executive Bill Gerstenmaier, which led to an invitation to the Vision for Space Exploration Workshop in Washington, D.C. with 200 of the top lunar scientists in the world.

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