NASA Backs 3D-Printed Homes & Buildings To Be Set Up On The Moon
Image via ICON
The man on the moon won’t just be the stuff of nursery rhymes.
NASA is providing funding to design 3D-printed infrastructure for the moon as part of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract awarded by the government to architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).
The collaboration, titled Project Olympus, will comprise 3D-printed lunar habitats and other robust structures that are constructed using materials from the moon’s surface, as opposed to earthly inflatables or metals.
The team will work with robotics construction company ICON and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama for the project, and will first experiment with a simulant of moon soil to explore an iteration, according to Dezeen.
The architecture has also been envisioned to overcome environmental extremes on the celestial body, such as cosmic and solar radiation.
Not only are the buildings meant to be hardy, but the designers describe that using local materials and 3D-printing will allow for the construction to be sustainable and zero-waste.
Unlike other projects, the Project Olympus team will first work on the moon and then apply aspects of this experience on Earth. “3D-printing with indigenous materials is a sustainable and versatile solution to off-world construction that will prove to be vital to our future here on Earth and in Outer Space,” said co-founders of Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+), which focuses on “human-centered” designs for space exploration.
BIG partner Martin Voelkle added, “With the technologies and efficiency parameters developed for the construction of extraterrestrial buildings, Project Olympus will also help us to build sustainably on planet Earth as we strive to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment.”
Image via ICON
Image via ICON
[via Dezeen, images via ICON]
Also check out these recent news
