Peter C. Chen, an astrophysicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center, has created a composite that consists of an epoxy, carbon nan-otubes, and a material that simulates lunar soil that has proved to be as hard, dense, and strong as concrete. His goal is to construct a telescope on the moon that is powerful enough to analyze the chemistry of planets that orbit other stars. Chen has already created a 12 in. (30 cm) telescope mirror on earth using the lunar dust composite and a technique known as spin casting. After forming a 12 in. (30 cm) diameter disk using the composite, he poured a thin layer of epoxy on the top of the disk and spun it at a constant speed while the epoxy hardened into a parabolic shape. A thin layer of reflective aluminum was then deposited on the surface of the epoxy while the structure was in a vacuum chamber, creating the telescope's mirror. Using the composite to construct a telescope located on the moon that is the size of the Hubble Space Telescope would require the transportation of just 130 lb (60 kg) of epoxy, 3 lb (1.3 kg) of carbon nanotubes, and less than 0.03 oz (1 g) of aluminum. The bulk of the material could be collected upon arrival. While the research is significant, experts point out that transporting a table for spin casting to the moon and creating a system to apply the aluminum in the presence of ambient dust are issues that still need to be resolved.
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