CoLAB Talk on NASA Innovative Partnerships

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Doug Comstock spoke on “Partnering with NASA: Innovation Through Colloboration” at the NASA CoLAB tenth Luna Philosophie event in San Francisco this evening (Aug. 5) at the Yahoo! Brickhouse. CoLAB is a NASA effort to build direct and open collaborations between the public, and NASA scientists and engineers. Comstock directs NASA’s Innovative Partnership Program. He gave a serious presentation regarding various partnership mechanisms and ended with a high-energy video. That video contained clips from the movie Armageddon which was a small cause for alarm given the recent CoLAB presentation titled “Will An Asteroid Hit the Earth?” Is NASA trying to tell us something?

Comstock mentioned that NASA’s Centennial Challenges are an effective way to bring new participants into NASA research and a cost-effective way to develop solutions to space-related technical challenges. At least two of the Challenges bear upon sustainability: power beaming (Oct 28) and renewable energy (no date set yet).

Worth special mention here for sustainability entrepreneurs are the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs. These are a way for small businesses to get NASA funding to develop new technologies. The small businesses retain most intellectual property rights and gain funding without diluting equity.

Since sustainable technologies often require decades to develop, it is difficult to get venture capital (VC) funding at early stages of development. VCs often consider early stage sustainable technologies to be literal science fair projects that do not offer the required quick financial exits. This is because VC funds often exist for only several years and then return the proceeds to investors. So there can be a large time gap between when technologies are conceived and when they are eligible for venture funding. SBIR and STTR funding can be crucial to bridging that gap.

There are other programs worth examining at the IPP as well, including seed funding programs and intellectual property available for licensing. Also, note that the next SBIR/STTR Phase I deadlines are September 4, 2008.

Flywheels: Clean Energy Storage?

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59833main_flywheel2A little known fact is that NASA has a flywheel program. The international Space Station (ISS) is periodically in the Earth’s shadow, so that its solar arrays do not work all of the time. A form of energy storage is required in order to operate the ISS while eclipsed and during peak loads. At one time, NASA had considered using flywheels to store electrical energy on the space station. Like many other NASA programs, the flywheel program has seen better days, but the technology still exists. Much of the research had centered around Glenn Research Center.

Flywheels are an old form of energy storage involving a rotating wheel that stores mechanical energy. The faster the wheel spins, the more energy it stores. Lead acid batteries are the common way to store electric energy. More sophisticated batteries have been created, but they still are somewhat heavy, typically involve toxic chemicals and wear out relatively quickly.

Given launch costs, sending up heavy discs of iron would seem absurd. Fortunately, today’s flywheels are a far cry from the simple iron wheels of older days. NASA developed lightweight flywheels where nearly all the mass is along the rim to maximize energy stored in terms of mass. They are configured to operate at extemely high rates of spin (up to 60,000 RPM) and involve sophisticated electronics. The key thing is that NASA’s flywheels are said to last much longer than batteries, so that they would not need to be replaced as often, which would cut down tremendously on energy storage launch costs.

A former contractor on the program mentioned that NASA eventually decided to stick with batteries, so that the flywheel program has languished. However, he was optimistic that this technology, particularly the electronics, could be adopted for earth-based flywheel systems. In fact, there are already several private electric flywheel storage firms in existence, but flywheels have not really taken off yet for electric storage. Part of the reason may be the minimum cost per unit. The electronics themselves could cost $5,000 to $50,000 per unit. On Earth, it may be possible, though, to construct giant flywheels to mitigate the cost per kwh stored. That suggests that flywheel technology may be best suited for large-scale electric energy storage, but isn’t this exactly they type of storage needed to fully take advantage of large-scale wind and solar energy? Flywheels should have great potential for large-scale clean energy storage. If the cost of the electronics could be reduced, they should reduce the need for battery storage in smaller power systems as well.

(Note: The Glenn Research Center was formerly known as the Lewis Research Center.)

<h%>Image, upper left: NASA flywheel device. Image courtesy of NASA Glenn Research Center.)</h%>

Soybean Crop Sprouting Up On The ISS

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Astronaut examining a box-like chamber of plants

NASA ISS Science Officer, Peggy Whitson looks at the ADVASC Soybean plant growth experiment in the U.S. Laboratory during Increment 5. Image courtesy of NASA).

Has astroculture has taken a ‘small sprout for plant, a giant leap for plant-kind’ on the International Space Station (ISS)? The Advanced AstrocultureTM (ADVASC) plant growth chamber is now “harvested” its second generation of soybeans. This is the first time that soybeans have been grown from seed to seed in space, and it is an important proof-of-concept advance for astroculture.

The goal of produce ADVASC is ultimately the production of high energy, low mass food sources during long duration space missions. The principle investigator was Dr. Weijia Zhou, of the University of Wisconsin – Madison (disclosure: the author’s alma mater), with the payload developed by the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics. The ADVASC was “designed to operate relatively autonomously, providing temperature, humidity, lighting control, nutrient delivery, and data downlink with minimal crew assistance.”

The ADVASC provides only 486 square centimeters of growing area. Yet relatively large amounts of crops can be grown in small areas. In Africa, a single, low-technology, 2 meter diameter “keyhole gardens” can supply the entire vegetable needs of a small family of three or four people. With cutting-edge space technology, an even smaller garden should be able to satisfy the vegetable needs of the crew of ISS or a station on the Moon, Mars or an asteroid mining colony.

(Image, upper right: NASA ISS Science Officer, Peggy Whitson looks at the ADVASC Soybean plant growth experiment in the U.S. Laboratory during Increment 5. Image courtesy of NASA).

CELSS As A Paradigm for Sustainable Technology

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Technicians in white baggy suits in circular room full of plants.

Astroculture laboratory. Image courtesy of NASA

NASA has been working on various aspects of Contained Environment Life Support Systems (CELSS). Much of this work could be applicable to solving the sustainability challenges faced by the human race. In addition to other topics, this blog will highlight CELSS of value to sustainability. Since NASA has already accomplished some of the groundwork (pun intended), industry could leverage NASA’s work into new sustainable technologies for use on the Earth in the areas of agriculture, microculture, wate management and recycling.

Although some work still continues, funding for some of this work has been slashed in recent years. Yet planned missions will create additional demand for CELSS. This could result in business opportunities for the private sector. Companies could leverage some of their costs in developing sustainable technology by gaining contract or innovative partnership work with NASA for CELSS components.

 

(Image, upper left: astroculture laboratory. Image courtesy of NASA.)