KICT joins NASA-funded STEM program

The Korean Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology said recently that it will be taking part in creating a National Aeronautics and Space Administration-funded education program producing space educational content.

Together with the US-based Wex Foundation and the International Space Exploration Research Institute at Hanyang University in Seoul, KICT was awarded a 1.48 billion won ($1.24 million) grant from the NASA, the institute said. 

“KICT‘s role will be to use its building expertise to create a simulated site that mimics the environment of the moon, where various testing can take place,” said a spokesperson for KICT. 

KICT’s simulated vacuum chamber will be a test bed for further research on technologies that may eventually allow settlement of the human race in a lava cave region on Earth‘s moon.

The site is currently under construction at KICT in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, and is planned for completion in the first half of 2017. It should be open for on-site study programs, mainly for researchers, in the latter half of the year.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)

cap -- The vacuum chamber under construction at KICT (KICT)