| Feb 01, 2013 | |
Building a lunar base with 3D printing |
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| (Nanowerk News) Setting up a lunar base could be made much simpler by using a 3D printer to build it from local materials. Industrial partners including renowned architects Foster + Partners have joined with ESA to test the feasibility of 3D printing using lunar soil. | |
| “Terrestrial 3D printing technology has produced entire structures,” said Laurent Pambaguian, heading the project for ESA. | |
| “Our industrial team investigated if it could similarly be employed to build a lunar habitat.” | |
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| Lunar base made with 3D printing | |
| Foster + Partners devised a weight-bearing ‘catenary’ dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a pressurised inflatable to shelter astronauts. | |
| A hollow closed-cell structure – reminiscent of bird bones – provides a good combination of strength and weight. | |
| The base’s design was guided in turn by the properties of 3D-printed lunar soil, with a 1.5 tonne building block produced as a demonstration. | |
| “3D printing offers a potential means of facilitating lunar settlement with reduced logistics from Earth,” added Scott Hovland of ESA’s human spaceflight team. | |
| “The new possibilities this work opens up can then be considered by international space agencies as part of the current development of a common exploration strategy.” | |
| “As a practice, we are used to designing for extreme climates on Earth and exploiting the environmental benefits of using local, sustainable materials,” remarked Xavier De Kestelier of Foster + Partners Specialist Modelling Group. “Our lunar habitation follows a similar logic.” | |
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| D-Shape printer | |
| The UK’s Monolite supplied the D-Shape printer, with a mobile printing array of nozzles on a 6 m frame to spray a binding solution onto a sand-like building material. | |
| 3D ‘printouts’ are built up layer by layer – the company more typically uses its printer to create sculptures and is working on artificial coral reefs to help preserve beaches from energetic sea waves. | |
| “First, we needed to mix the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide. This turns it into ‘paper’ we can print with,” explained Monolite founder Enrico Dini. | |
| “Then for our structural ‘ink’ we apply a binding salt which converts material to a stone-like solid. | |
| “Our current printer builds at a rate of around 2 m per hour, while our next-generation design should attain 3.5 m per hour, completing an entire building in a week.” |
| Source: ESA |
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