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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 08 2018, @02:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come dept.

Submitted via IRC for takyon

Although a recent NASA-supported study found Mars cannot be made inhabitable with our current technology, this hasn't stopped the space agency from continuing its plans to one day colonize the red planet. One such initiative launched in 2015 is the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. The $2.5 million competition, now in its third phase, seeks to find the most adequate housing for future Martian residents. The challenge also hopes to uncover advanced construction technologies that may be used in sustainable housing solutions for Earth as well.

Now, NASA and its competition partner Bradley University of Peoria, Illinois, have selected the five winning teams out of 18 submissions from around the world. The winners will share the $100,000 prize and will have to create 3D-printed one-third-scale versions of their designs to confirm their models' feasibility.

[...] "We are thrilled to see the success of this diverse group of teams that have approached this competition in their own unique styles," said in a statement Monsi Roman, program manager for NASA's Centennial Challenges. "They are not just designing structures, they are designing habitats that will allow our space explorers to live and work on other planets. We are excited to see their designs come to life as the competition moves forward."

Source: https://interestingengineering.com/nasa-reveals-the-impressive-winning-designs-of-its-3d-printed-mars-habitat-contest


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @09:51PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @09:51PM (#719044)
    We still cannot inhabit Antarctica. We have a few science stations that are well supplied from other continents, but we cannot have a village there that would be productive and self-sufficient.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:35AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:35AM (#719233) Journal

    We still cannot inhabit Antarctica.

    There's those science stations inhabited on a continual basis. So um, already no.

    but we cannot have a village there that would be productive and self-sufficient

    First, the science stations are already moderately self-sufficient in a critical way. They generate enough value to their parent countries to receive the goods they need to survive. It's definitely not self-sufficient in your sense, but it does mean that those stations aren't going away any time soon, such persistence being a common important trait of self-sustaining colonies.

    So it's just a matter of closing the gap between permanent station and self-sustaining colony. While that hasn't been done yet, we need to keep in mind that there are powerful institutional obstructions to constructing self-sustaining colonies in Antarctica. It's illegal via the Antarctica Treaty for every country with the know-how to do so. So if a group wants to colonize Antarctica, they first have to figure out how to deal with the legal blowback. That can include economic blockades, seizure of assets outside of Antarctica, and even invasion. Virtually all of the support that the existing science stations could provide will be withheld from them, artificially increasing the difficulty of building a colony.

    While it's presently a substantial obstacle, I wouldn't consider it a reason to say we "can't" build such colonies. My take is that we're probably not that far away from the end of the treaty. And when that happens, then the establishment of permanent colonies will soon follow.