The 3D Printed Homes of the Future Are Giant Eggs on Mars:
It doesn’t get much more futuristic than living on Mars—and guess what? There’s a 3D printed home for that, too. In fact, there are a few; last year saw the conclusion of a contest held by NASA called the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge.
[...] The top prize ($500,000) went to AI Space Factory, a New York-based architecture and construction technologies company focused on building for space exploration. Their dual-shell, four-level design is called Marsha, and unlike Martian habitats we’ve seen on the big screen or read about in sci-fi novels, it’s neither a dome nor an underground bunker. In fact, it sits fully above ground and it looks like a cross between a hive and a giant egg.
The team chose the hive-egg shape very deliberately, saying that it’s not only optimized to handle the pressure and temperature demands of the Martian atmosphere, but building it with a 3D printer will be easier because the printer won’t have to move around as much as it would to build a structure with a larger footprint. That means less risk of errors and a faster building speed.
The building material would combine basalt fiber and bioplastics made from plants grown on Mars.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 10 2020, @01:57PM (1 child)
Other round structures.
Water tower.
Fuel tower -- storage for manufactured fuel.
Short height but round structures such as garage or workshop. Can a roof be printed. I know this is less materials efficient than the taller egg / hive structure for living quarters.
5G cell tower to help spread covid to Mars.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday July 11 2020, @02:24PM
Oooh I've got an interesting idea. Pretty much any civil engineering for water and sewage pipes.
Yeah current popular filament are probably not drinkable, but something could be engineered.