Moon Rocks to Fuel Missions to Mars

British Titanium plc (BTi)to receive US$14.32M funding from NASA to deliver a process to produce oxygen on the moon from lunar regolith.

December 17, 2004 -- British Titanium plc (BTi) is delighted to announce to that a proposal submitted to the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) for the development of an in-situ resource utilisation process to produce oxygen on the moon from lunar regolith has been successful. The development project will be completed in partnership with the Florida Institute of Technology and NASAs Kennedy Space Center.

As the largest component (up to 85% by weight) in any rocket is the oxidiser required to burn fuel, locally produced oxygen for rocket propulsion promises by far the greatest cost and mass saving of any off-world resource utilisation and is therefore vital to the achievement of a sustained and affordable human robotic programme to explore the solar system and beyond.

In January 2004 President George W. Bush announced a new vision for Americas civil space programme that calls for human and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This vision set forth goals that include sending a human expedition to the Moon as early as 2015 but no later than 2020, and conducting robotic missions to Mars in preparation for a future human expedition.

On 16th November British Titanium was informed by NASAs Exploration Systems Mission Directorate that their proposal was among the best received and has been selected for award. Of the 3,700 submissions to NASA under this call for proposals covering various aspects of the Moon project, 485 were selected for submission of a full proposal and of these, 70 were successful. BTis submission is the only one led by a UK company and one of only two non-American winners. The project envisages a first year of establishing basic principles followed by a three-year development of the technology. Total support for BTis ILMENOX project is US$14.32M shared between your company, Florida Tech and NASAs Kennedy Space Center. The project is provided with decision gates at the end of each phase, and the terms of the contract will be negotiated in January 2005.

The team assembled for the ILMENOX project will be led by the worlds leading experts in the technologies to be developed: Professor Derek Fray, head of the department of materials science & metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, and a director and co-founder of BTi; Dr Jonathan Whitlow, Florida Tech. associate professor of chemical engineering; and Dr Clyde Parrish, NASA senior chemist based at the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

This chance to capitalize on BTis know-how in electro-deoxidation demonstrates your companys entrepreneurial flair, and was conceived at our Cambridge, UK pilot plant by South African process engineer Shaan Oosthuizen. The Board congratulates Shaan on his hard work in compiling the entry, and for a spectacular win!

Turning the rocks on the moon into rocket fuel is a challenge we are confident of meeting with success. British Titanium is most grateful for the financial support now offered by the government of the United States through NASA. Cambridge throughout its illustrious 700 years of history has been at the forefront of science: we are honoured to be playing a part in mans greatest journey into the unknown.

###