Face fungus, sustainable camping gear, stationery made from stone, renewable naphtha, hydrogen-powered tugboat: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of October 4th

#5 Blue Origin to receive $10 million from NASA for liquefaction and storage technologies

In Washington, GeekWire reports that Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is on the top of a NASA funding list for technologies that could be applied to the exploration and settlement of the moon and Mars. Blue Origin will be awarded $10 million to conduct a ground-based demonstration of hydrogen and oxygen liquefaction and storage. The technology could be used in a scenario where lunar water ice is mined on the moon and then converted through electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which would then be cryogenically chilled into liquid form for storage and use as energy.

NASA stated that the “demonstration could help inform a large-scale propellant production plant suitable for the lunar surface. Blue Origin’s technology is part of a group of promising technologies that are on a “tipping point in their development, meaning NASA’s investment is likely the extra push a company needs to significantly mature a capability” as described by the associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

More on the story, here.