NASA Announces Blue Skies Aeronautics Competition Winners - AVweb

News Discussion
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NASA has awarded first place in its annual Gateways to Blue Skies aeronautics competition to a team representing Boston University. The team, which included Max Pounanov, Michael Osuji, Odin Francis and Patrick Olah, took the prize with their project exploring aluminum powder combustion. Now in its second year, Gateways to Blue Skies is sponsored by the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s University Innovation Project with the goal of engaging “college students in researching climate-friendly technologies and applications that will establish a zero emissions future for aviation.” 

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/nasa-announces-blue-skies-aeronautics-competition-winners
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I assume they were exploring aluminum powder combustion as a rocket fuel. While aluminum oxide is abundant in the Earth’s crust and may the most common surface metal; it is also found as deposits in brains with dementia. Nobody knows if this is correlative or causative, but for awhile the banning of aluminum cookware was considered. Regardless, I don’t want to breath aerosolized aluminum oxide generated as an aviation byproduct.