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http://www2.pcmag.com/media/images/3...se.jpg?thumb=y

Saw this earlier this month:

Quote:

Print Your Own 3D Moon Base

Rather than haul raw materials from Earth, the European Space Agency (ESA) is investigating the idea of using a 3D printer to build a base on the moon from moon dust.

It is working with a number of partners including the architecture firm Foster + Partners which has been responsible for many high-profile buildings including Wembley Stadium and ?The Gherkin? in London, the Reichstag redevelopment in Berlin and New York?s Hearst Tower.

The plan for the moon base envisages taking an inflatable dome as a base then using a giant 3D printer to build a wall out of bricks of local regolith or moon dust to protect up to four astronauts from radiation and meteorites. PC Magazine reports:

For demonstration purposes, Foster + Partners produced a 1.5-ton building block? of the sort that would be used in the lunar habitat, using a U.K.-based Monolite?s D-Shape mobile 3D printer. Instead of using lunar regolith, the demonstration block was fashioned using the D-Shape printer?s ?array of nozzles ? to spray a binding solution onto a sand-like building material.?

The D-Shape?s layering of material to create building materials is fast enough that Monolite founder Enrico Dini said a structure like the lunar base could be completed in just a week.

Wired has an interview with Xavier de Kestelier, co-head of Foster + Partners? specialist modeling group, about the challenges of lunar building.

The Moon doesn?t protect us from radiation like the Earth does with its magnetic field and atmosphere, so it doesn?t hit you straight away. During solar flares there?s a much higher element of gamma radiation, so we actually start looking at a dome structure that can protect you from that, and the thickness that we need for that is 1.5m. Then there are other factors, for example meteorite impact. Meteorites can?t burn up in the atmosphere of the Moon because there is none, which means they hit the Moon?s surface at a speed of roughly 18km/s. Compare that to a bullet, which is roughly 2km/s. Don?t think it rains meteorites there, but you have a high probability??

The dome will be around two storeys high, providing four astronauts with a large space within which to work. The buildings are inherently modular, as their architecture is directly influenced by the existing design of space stations orbiting Earth?

The site identified for the printed structure is at the Moon?s south pole, on the edge of the Shackleton Crater ? a position that receives almost constant sunlight, and which is in direct line of sight of Earth for radio contact for most of each day. The eventual goal for the ESA, though, is to test this technology and get it ready for use in manned missions to Mars.

PC Magazine: ESA, Partners Demo 3D-Printable Lunar Habitat

Wired: ESA and architects team up to design method of 3D-printing lunar bases

http://www9.pcmag.com/media/images/3...se.jpg?thumb=y

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