From moonscapes to Mars, her journey follows a cosmic path

In her lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory, physicist Suzanne Nowicki holds up a diamond and ponders new technologies for lunar space stations. Sandwiched between plates of metal studded with real gold electrodes, the hidden diamond has the same kind of desirable attributes as carbon, making the device a compelling candidate for detecting neutrons.

Central to a two-year project she's leading with funds from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, her task is first to get to know what this European-made diamond detector can do on Earth and then figure out how to adapt it to perform in harsh conditions for NASA missions on our moon, which are a step toward sending the first astronauts to Mars.

Los Alamos is part of NASA's Fission Surface Power Project, which looks to industry and the U.S. Department of Energy for new capabilities to further space nuclear power and propulsion technologies.

Instead of powering moon bases with solar energy, NASA plans to use small nuclear reactors that can supply safe, reliable power for astronauts and robots, supporting sustainable lunar living in an extremely cold environment to prepare for missions to Mars. Specifically, NASA envisions an electricity-generating fission power system that could support 30 households for at least 10 years.

"If the United States puts a nuclear reactor on the surface of the moon for human exploration and I'm a part of that project, it would be a bigger deal than anything else that I've done," Suzanne says.

Suzanne's team aims to design and build a radiation monitor, with a prototype ready in about two years for a potential experimental flight before flying onboard NASA's Artemis missions. The idea is to integrate a neutron detector into the spacecraft to monitor radiation levels emitted from the reactors and to gauge the health of reactor operations, she says.

The diamond detector sends out signals that appear on Suzanne's laptop screen for analysis. "Putting instruments in space is very challenging because when we transport everything in space, it takes a lot of fuel," she says. "This is extremely small, so it's very convenient for space applications, and this type of material is very radiation hard, which means it can work longer than other typical instruments. In space there is a lot more radiation than on Earth, especially near a nuclear reactor. Radiation is known to cause damage and can kill a detector quickly."

While the diamond detector is a strong candidate, this off-the-shelf product can't survive space conditions unless the electronics are rebuilt for extreme temperatures and a vacuum. Suzanne's group has expertise in making electronics for space.

As Suzanne's team develops the neutron detector prototype, they will compare the diamond-based approach with another option, a fission chamber.

> Read the rest of the profile