ORLANDO, Fla. — There’s an Oviedo warehouse just north of the University of Central Florida that looks normal enough on the outside, but inside its staff and students are creating something otherworldly.
Alien dirt — or regolith simulant — is the main product of UCF’s Exolith Lab and is gaining huge demand as the next era of space exploration and projects like NASA’s moonshot Artemis missions prepare to blast off.
In 2018 the lab produced a little more than 1,000 pounds of regolith to the scientific community. Last year the UCF lab hit pay dirt as demand avalanched into 40 tons — 80,000 pounds — of regolith. Most orders demand lunar soil, but the lab also produces simulated soil of Mars, asteroids, Mercury and other celestial rocks.
