ESA 3D Printing a Lunar Habitat

JonB

Don't Take Crap from Life
Sep 16, 2012
1,157
0
0
ESA 3D Printing a Lunar Habitat



A company in Italy has already produced a 1.5 tonne simulated lunar building block.

The European Space Agency has a new idea: to build a moon habitat using an inflatable dome, then cover the dome in rock solid, 3D printed lunar soil. 3D printing has already been used to make buildings piece by piece, but nobody had yet investigated whether it might be possible in the lunar environment. Working with the ESA, architects Foster + Partners have devised a structure that might work: a weight-bearing dome with honeycombed hollow chambers, much like a beehive. The structure keeps down weight while maximizing strength. While the engineers and architects found some problems with trying to 3D print in vacuum, they feel confident that it will work. In theory, the lander for a mission would include a 3D printing robot and the inflatable habitat, which the robot would cover with a protective regolith dome.

Monolite, a UK-based company, helped build the printer and figure out how to make lunar regolith into a usable printing material. "First, we needed to mix the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide. This turns it into 'paper' we can print with," said Enrico Dini of Monolite. "Then for our structural 'ink' we apply a binding salt which converts material to a stone-like solid." Monolite is now working on speeding up the process. "Our current printer builds at a rate of around 2m per hour, while our next-generation design should attain 3.5m per hour, completing an entire building in a week."

The tests were undertaken using basalt rock from a volcano in central Italy, which has a 99.8% resemblance to lunar soil. An Italian research firm, Alta SpA, headed up the part of the project working to figure out how to get the printing process to work in space. "The process is based on applying liquids but, of course, unprotected liquids boil away in vacuum," said Giovanni Cesaretti of Alta. "So we inserted the 3D printer nozzle beneath the regolith layer. We found small 2mm-scale droplets stay trapped by capillary forces in the soil, meaning the printing process can indeed work in vacuum."

Source & Image: ESA [http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Building_a_lunar_base_with_3D_printing]


Permalink
 

Robetid

New member
Feb 1, 2013
76
0
0
Who the Hell wants to live on the moon? I dont think they get The Escapist there.
 

tangoprime

Renegade Interrupt
May 5, 2011
716
0
0
Looks awesome, very promising. So, can we go ahead and test print these in poor african and central american countries and then give them away as housing (edit: which would then probably be promptly bought and occupied by expats who want to tweet about how they live in the structure of the future whilst being ecofriendly in a developing nation)? Two birds with one stone, raise awareness and funding maybe? That would be cool :)
 

subtlefuge

Lord Cromulent
May 21, 2010
1,107
0
0
DVS BSTrD said:
"some day there will be a telephone 3D printer in every city lunar colony."
Looks a little like a duck
I had no choice, whatsoever.


Also, tell me when they have hotels and return trips. I bet nobody will be able to afford a decent internet connection on the Moon, and I like Earth food a bit too much.