A Moon Base Made From Lunar Dust

Zothecula writes "The race to build a manned research station on the moon has been slowly picking up steam in recent years, with several developed nations actively studying a variety of construction methods. In just the past few months, the European Space Agency revealed a design involving 3D-printed structures and the Russian Federal Space Agency announced plans for a moon base by 2037. Now international design agency, Architecture Et Cetera (A-ETC), has thrown its hat into the ring with a proposal for SinterHab, a moon base consisting of bubble-like compartments coated in a protective layer of melted lunar dust."

Comments

Cart Before The Horse

[Anonymous Coward]

Why worry about the moonbase construction material when you can't even land on the moon?

First things first.

Re:Cart Before The Horse

[Synerg1y]

All we need to do is get the inflatable protective air-tight internal structures on the moon

Would give a whole new meaning to not running with scissors.

buzzword bingo /. edition:

[Thud457]

Only if John McAfee pays for it with bitcoins mined with an Beowulf cluster of Arduinos.

Not a bad idea

[wbr1]

It is plentiful, you just have to engineer the printers to use the material, which may be difficult as there is not much of the real stuff to test with.
The last thing you want is a popup saying "HP LunarJet 1050P has detected a nonstandard or refilled cartridge. Printing suspended."

Melting Sand with fresnel lense

[angel'o'sphere]

I once watched a video from an "artist" who has built a kind of 3D plotter using a fresnel lense to melt sand. When I saw that I immediately thought: that is how you built on the moon.

Perhaps someone knows that video and can link it?