3D printed moon building designs revealed

3D printed moon building designs revealed

www.bbc.co.uk

In 2010 a team of researchers from Washington State University found that artificial regolith containing silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron and magnesium oxide could be used by 3D printers to create solid objects.

The latest plans are the result of a collaboration between a number of organisations including the European Space Agency.

The consortium tested the practicalities of using a printer on the Moon by setting up a D-shape 3D printer, which are used to print very large house-sized structures, in a vacuum chamber with simulated lunar material.

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Well this is really cool, We all know they designed these 3D printers so astronauts could build tools in space instead of needing a re-stock of equipment.

This is good news as well as bad news, Bad news being these could obviously be used for purposes on earth of people in real need.

Good news being, at least they are using these for scientific benefits,.

Regards,

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

They will come out with printable food soon and we can all have a food machine like in Star trek.
And geeks will start printing their own girlfriends.

I would like to find out more about this, but it seems to me they would also need some sort of "binding" substance to hold together the dry regolith. That binding material (some sort of water-based or solvent-based liquid-like stuff) would need to be transported to the Moon, and would probably be very heavy. I know the Moon has some ice in perpetually dark craters at its poles, but it isn't that readily accessible.

The devil might be in the details here, but it's certainly an interesting endeavor to consider.

Originally posted by LeLeu
They will come out with printable food soon and we can all have a food machine like in Star trek.
And geeks will start printing their own girlfriends.

Forget the geeks -- I think anyone would like to build their own sexual partner.