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NASA Working on 3D Printers to Print Objects Using Martian Regolith

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the outta-this-world dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

One major issue faced in the quest to colonize other heavenly bodies is how to get all the raw materials transported in a financially feasible manner.

Trove reports a possible solution using 3-D printers to build materials required using native reources as ink:

That might be all they need if a plan by Niki Werkheiser and her engineering team at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center works out. They are experimenting with a 3-D printer that would make bricks suitable for airtight buildings and radiation-proof shelters using the grit that blows across Mars’s red surface. In Huntsville, Ala., Ms. Werkheiser, NASA’s 3-D print project manager, is starting to print curved walls and other structures using imitation Martian sand as an ink. Engineers at the European Space Agency are exploring ways to use lunar dust as an ink to print out an entire moon base. London-based architects Foster + Partners have designed a printable lunar colony.

It would make sense for colonization to send automated or remote-controlled fabrication units ahead to prepare a settlement for human habitation, but does that sensible step endanger the science due to the risks of contamination?

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TK-421 on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:50AM

    by TK-421 (3235) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:50AM (#170174) Journal

    Things are in a sad state when I repeatedly keep mistaking N.A.S.A for N.S.A. Seeing that series of letters together these days has a much better chance of it being the latter rather than the former which I find vulgar.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:25AM (#170185)

    Good news, citizen! We're abolishing all N-word agencies to eliminate confusion. NASA, NSA, NSF, NTSB, we don't need any of those.

    Meanwhile we're establishing the Office of the Future-President-Elect, to inform voters that they will be electing Hillary Clinton.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @03:41AM (#170732)

    Seeing that series of letters together these days has a much better chance of it being the latter rather than the former which I find vulgar.

    Only because you hang out here which is largely a single-issue site with its stories. Sort of Fox News-ish where the same kind of stuff is recycled over and over to elicit the predictable outrage and puffery from the usual suspects.

    I lurk, hoping things will improve, but I fear most dissenting opinions get marginalized and this place will stagnate.