Since this is a new field, there are at present no people who working full time on exochemistry. No one is (as yet) basing their research on the principles outlined at this site, and there are (to the best of my knowledge) no chemists trained in industrial processing performing research in exochemistry. However many researchers (principally geochemists and chemical engineers) have done excellent pioneering work in the field and developed some very interesting methods, focussed principally for production of oxygen and/or fuel production on the Moon and Mars. Some of these researchers are listed below:

John S. Lewis (University of Arizona): Variety of interests, notably asteroids. His textbook, "Physics and Chemistry of the Solar System," is an extremely valuable resource. He has written a very readable description of the potential of space mineral resources called Mining the Sky. Dr Lewis was also a co-editor of Resources of Near Earth Space, a superb technical presentation of what was known in 1994, from all of the leaders in the field.

Wolfgang Seboldt (German Aerospace Center, DLR): Oxygen production on the Moon. He was also the principal author of a valuable "Review of the Long-Term Options for Space Exploration and Utilisation" for the European Space Agency.

Larry A. Haskin (Washington University in St Louis): Electrolysis of molten silicates.

Benton C. Clark (Martin Marietta): Production of rocket fuel on Mars.

Larry A. Taylor (University of Tennessee, Knoxville): Oxygen production on the Moon.

Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics, has overseen work on processes for making liquid fuels for production on Mars, such as toluene. Zubrin is the author of the book The Case for Mars and he has been a driving force behind the Mars Direct proposal and the Mars Society.

Go to the Exochemistry Site main page

Last updated 24th January, 2006.