Rechecked the original abstract
The researchers were all based in Colorado, with no obvious NASA affilliation. There are some odd aspects of the abstract that suggest they were working at the limits of what is possible -
A layer of permafrost (frozen wet dirt) under a near vacuum, heated strongly from below (The elevated geotherm is a bit of a hint).
I'll have to follow-up on these guys and see if they published formally, and what came of it.
Meanwhile, I can scope out a similar experiment myself, bearing in mind that the failure of a 40 m^3 vacuum chamber is worth about 1/4 stick of dynamite...