Although having recently been extremely successful gathering data on the surface of Mars, robotic missions are not an effective substitute for the insight and knowledge about our solar system that can be gained though first-hand exploration. Earlier this year, President Bush presented a 'new course' for the U.S. space program that shifts NASA's focus to the development of new manned space vehicles to the return of humans to the moon. Re-establishing the human presence on the moon will eventually lead to humans permanently living and working in space and also serve as a possible launch point for missions into deeper space. There are several obstacles to the realization of these goals, most notably the lack of life support and environmental regeneration and monitoring hardware capable of functioning on long duration spaceflight. In the case of the latter, past experience on the International Space Station (ISS), Mir, and the Space Shuttle has strongly underscored the need to develop broad spectrum in-flight chemical sensors that: (1) meet current environmental monitoring requirements on ISS as well as projected requirements for future missions, and (2) enable the in-situ acquisition and analysis of analytical data in order to further define on-orbit monitoring requirements. Additionally, systems must be designed to account for factors unique to on-orbit deployment such as crew time availability, payload restrictions, material consumption, and effective operation in microgravity. This dissertation focuses on the development, ground testing, and microgravity flight demonstration of Colorimetric Solid Phase Extraction (C-SPE) as a candidate technology to meet the near- and long-term water quality monitoring needs of NASA.
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