Nearly two years after the launch of the ambitious White House Space Policy Directive 1and in the wake of this year's 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the team at NASA appears to be on the verge of a space renaissance. The agency is busier than ever, with recent months bringing a new generation of climbing robots, confirmation of a long-planned mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa and announcements surrounding dozens of other promising endeavors.

For science lovers, these developments inspire excitement over our long-term prospects as a space-faring civilization. However, leaders and other stakeholders in the fuel cell industry also have good reason to be excited. NASA has always been an important player in the history and advancement of hydrogen fuel cell technology, and with so many projects in the works, the agency looks poised to deliver on some revolutionary ideas in the months and years ahead.

A History Of Fuel Cell Innovation

Welsh physicist Sir William Robert Grove invented the first fuel cell in 1842, but it saw little advancement in the decades immediately following its invention. In the 1950s, NASA (then known as NACA) scientists settled on fuel cell technology as the best option for providing spacecraft with electricity and identified liquid hydrogen as the ideal fuel for achieving the launch capability necessary for space flight.

These early bets on fuel cell technology and hydrogen power kicked off years of internal research and commissioned studies that would bring fuel cell technology into the modern age. From 1950 to 1957, according to researcher and historian John L. Sloop, NASA researchers and funding drove incredible progress in the use of liquid hydrogen as a fuel source. Innovations from this period included a state-of-the-art cryogenics laboratory, improvements on hydrogen liquefaction technology and new mobile containment units for transporting hydrogen in large quantities to name just a few.

Sixty years after NASA's earliest experiments with fuel cell technology, I believe the agency's continued innovations in the field could revolutionize our use of hydrogen power.

Hydrogen Storage

In December 2018, NASA reported that it had broken ground for the world's largest liquid hydrogen storage tank. Previous iterations of the agency's storage tanks had remained essentially unchanged since the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. The report stated that despite their vacuum jacketing and three-foot-thick perlite insulation, those earlier tanks suffered from substantial "boil off" of liquid hydrogen, which is a cryogenic (i.e., super cold) substance that must be kept under -423 degrees Fahrenheit to avoid evaporation.

Now, thanks to its new Integrated Refrigeration and Storage (IRaS) system, NASA scientists can actively remove heat energy from the storage tanks. The numerous new technologies behind IRaS could lead to dramatic improvements in our ability to store hydrogen at scale. This, in turn, could facilitate the success of clean solar and wind energy farms, with hydrogen fuel being used to supplement the inconsistent energy output produced by those sources.

The All-Electric Aircraft

The University of Illinois announced in May (via New Atlas) that NASA had partnered with it to fund a three-year, $6 million project aimed at developing a hydrogen fuel cell system for an all-electric aircraft. To achieve this goal, researchers will need to design a practical cryogenic system that is capable of converting hydrogen chemical energy into electricity while maintaining the low temperatures needed to keep the fuel in its liquid state.

According to research conducted by Germany's Institute of Atmospheric Physics (via New Scientist), current aircrafts are responsible for roughly 5% of all global warming emissions. That figure is expected to rise precipitously in the years ahead. With some climate activists increasingly calling for consumers to shun air travel altogether, the new all-electric aircraft could transform flying into one of the most ethical modes of transportation and drive down ticket prices by eliminating the need for costly jet fuel making international travel more accessible than ever before.

The Regenerative Fuel Cell

According to a July report published by Energy News Network, NASA's reinvigorated plans for a return to the moon have "significantly revitalized" research on the use of fuel cells for space travel at NASA's John H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Researchers have already succeeded in creating many improvements to modern fuel cell technology, including creating a new and improved wicking system for carrying wastewater away from individual fuel cells.

Now, the Glenn Research Center team is working on a regenerative fuel cell that would be capable of producing electricity from hydrogen and water while also performing the reverse function using water and electricity generated by solar panels or other sources to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen production has always been one of the leading obstacles preventing the widespread adoption of fuel cell technology given that the process is so costly. NASA's regenerative fuel cell could form the basis for cheap, solar-powered hydrogen production at scale, which could lead to wider adoption of fuel cell technology for transportation and other applications.

Thanks to NASA's renewed focus on space exploration, it is very likely that we will soon begin to see a pronounced acceleration of advancements in fuel cell technology. Fuel cell industry stakeholders would do well to keep a close eye on whatever comes next from the agency. If history is any indication, it could be a game-changer.

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Why NASA's Renewed Efforts In Space Exploration Are Great News For The Fuel Cell Industry - Forbes