Once we're there, scientists argued, we could figure out if the resources on the Moon are as valuable as we think they are. Our current printer builds at a rate of around 2 metres per hour, while our next-generation design should attain 3.5 metres per hour, completing an entire building in a week."Īrchitectural firm Foster + Partners came up with a weight-bearing 'catenary' dome design, which features a cellular structured wall to shield residents against micrometeoroids and space radiation, and a hollow closed-cell structure that would give the building a good strength-to-weight ratio. "Then for our structural 'ink', we apply a binding salt which converts material to a stone-like solid. NASA in particular has a vested interest in seeing this happen, as the Moon has been designated the most strategic pitstop for a manned mission to Mars, with MIT scientists calculating last month that astronauts could launch from Earth with up to 68 percent less mass if they collected most of their heavy liquid fuel from a Moon base on the way.Īdd that to the fact that NexGen Space LLC, a consultant company for NASA, recently estimated that a lunar refuelling station would "reduce the cost to NASA of sending humans to Mars by as much as $US10 billion per year", and a Moon village is starting to look pretty inevitable. "The ESA space-exploration strategy sets the Moon as a priority destination for humans on the way to Mars," NASA's Kathy Laurini told Leonard David at . "The timing is right to get started on the capabilities which allow Europe to meet its exploration objectives and ensure it remains a strong partner as humans begin to explore the Solar System." Construction of this manned lunar base could begin in as little as five years, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced at their International Symposium on Moon 2020-2030 in the Netherlands last month, suggesting that a new Moon village could provide a potential springboard for future missions to Mars.
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