The European Space Agency (ESA) has 3D-printed a 1.5-tonne building block from simulated lunar dust. With the building block, ESA aims to demonstrate the feasibility of building a lunar base using local materials.
That ESA wants to build habitats on the moon has long been known. The agency announced in September 2017 that it wanted to build shelters that would allow long-term research to be carried out on the moon. This is necessary as conditions for astronauts on the moon are challenging and make research difficult, partly because a spacecraft is cramped. Building shelters on the moon will give astronauts more space available to carry out research and allow them to stay on the moon for longer periods of time.
Local materials
Building on the moon is complex, partly because transporting materials to the celestial body is very costly. ESA has therefore been conducting experiments on fabricating buildings from local material on the moon since 2011. One of the concepts being tested here is the use of an inflatable dome inflated on the moon. 3D printers are then used to print protection around this dome from lunar dust.
"The dome is inflatable. We send it to the moon and inflate it there. Then we use moon dust to build a protection around the dome with robotic 3D printers. The robot collects the dust and builds the protection layer by layer, from outside the dome. The dome itself is dome-shaped and 1 to 2 metres thick," ESA researcher Johannes Gumpinger told the Radio 1 programme News and Co.
Hollow cell structure
The space agency now reports having taken the first step in manufacturing a building block from which this protection can be made. On Flickr, ESA releases a photo of a 1.5-tonne building block that has been 3D printed using simulated lunar dust. The building block is based on a hollow cell structure, which combines strength with low weight. This is similar to how bones of birds are constructed, reports the space agency.
The building block is on display at ESA's ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk. Among other things, the block can be admired as part of tours of the nearby Space Expo.
3D-Printed Habitat Challenge
Incidentally, ESA is not the only party working on 3D-printed buildings in space. For instance, NASA, in collaboration with a number of partners, is organising the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. In this contest, participants are invited to 3D-print a habitat for exploring deep space. With the competition, NASA aims to accelerate the development of construction techniques for sustainable homes both on Earth and beyond.
The 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge has been running since 2015, when participating teams presented their designs. Teams manufactured structural components for the buildings they designed in 2017, while last year they developed virtual models to demonstrate the functional and physical properties of their designs. The third and final phase is currently underway and, among other things, challenges participants to 3D print their design at a 1:3 scale.
Feeling at home
If astronauts spend long periods of time in a building on the moon, for example, it is important that they feel at home here. Here too, 3D printers can come in handy by allowing astronauts to print their own things to help them do this. ESA therefore asked the public as part of a competition what they would 3D-print to feel at home in such an environment.
The winning ideas in both categories - under-18s and adults - are related to nature. Judith de Santiago was declared the winner in the under-18 and adult category. The 17-year-old Spanish student designed a 12-sided plant pot incorporating symbols of the earth. "The blue waves at the bottom represent the waves of the sea," Judith writes, "and the green badge with a small plant in the middle, inspired by Disney's film WALL-E, represents the earth in general."
In the adult category, visual designer Helen Schell from the UK won with her 'magic moon garden' made from recycled plastic. "What is missing on the moon?", Helen writes. "Colour and living plants. This is an idea for a colourful carpet of interchangeable colours and designs, which can be moved and resized in the way you want to use it in your moon home."
Printing donor organs in space
3D printing in space also offers very other interesting possibilities, by the way. For example, US company Techshot plans to send a 3D printer to the International Space Station (ISS) in May to print heart tissue, with the aim of eventually being able to print donor organs in space. Indeed, if organs are printed in a laboratory on Earth, they tend to collapse under their own weight during the printing process.
Due to the lack of gravity in space, Techshot says space is an ideal location to print organs. For this purpose, the company has developed a 3D printer called BioFabrication Facility (BFF). This printer is about the size of a microwave oven and can print heart tissue using patient stem cells. This heart tissue can be used to 'repair' the patient's heart.
Russia's 3D Bioprinting Solutions is also making headway in this field. The company announced in December 2018 that it had printed a thyroid gland and cartilage tissue from a mouse with its Organ.Aut bio-3D printer. This material was flown back to Earth for analysis.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: ESA
Source: NASA
Source: BBC
Source: 3D Bioprinting Solutions
Source photo: ESA-G. Porter, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
