ZAP lunar simulant made by Zybek Advanced products Inc.

• Position: AEROSPACE/SPACE/SATELLITES

Boulder

zyhekap.com

Mike Weinstein, founder, president, and jack-of-all-trades at Zybek Advanced Products, didn't set out to replicate moon dust--he just wanted to help Denver's Johns Manville make better fiberglass. Then NASA came knocking on Weinstein's door about five years ago looking for a way to make "lunar simulant" to test on anything the agency might send to the Moon. "The Moon is actually one-third glass," Weinstein says. "Micrometeorites constantly pelt the surface, mixing it up and melting it."

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To mimic this chaotic process, Zybek's industrial plasma system focuses a megawatt of electricity to melt sand and other minerals at temperatures above 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The result is lunar simulant...