3D Printing On Other Worlds

New 3-D Printing Process Could Lead to Construction on Mars and the Moon

USC Viterbi professor’s invention uses lunar and Martian dust to develop material for a zero-gravity environment.

Amy Blumenthal | April 4, 2016

[...] Using synthetic material created by the Johnson Space Center that mirrors the existing gravel and material available on the Moon and Mars, Khoshnevis and his team developed “a robotic fabrication process” that uses high melting-point ceramics such as magnesium oxide (readily available on the Moon and Mars) and ordinary regolith (planetary soil) to produce tiles that could withstand the heat and pressure of exhaust plumes of landing spacecraft.
SSS, Khoshnevis said, “is a novel powder-based additive manufacturing method that can build parts of various scale out of polymers, metals, ceramics and composites.” [...]

Source: http://craft.usc.edu/CC/modem.html

Source: http://craft.usc.edu/CC/modem.html

Contour Crafting (CC) is a layered fabrication technology developed by Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California. Contour Crafting technology has great potential for automating the construction of whole structures as well as sub-components. Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning. Source: http://craft.usc.edu/CC/modem.html

<more at http://news.usc.edu/97707/new-3-d-printing-process-could-lead-to-construction-on-mars-and-the-moon/; related articles and links: http://craft.usc.edu/CC/modem.html (Contour Crafting) and http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/centennial_challenges/3DPHab/2015winners.html (NASA Awards Top Three Design Finalists in 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge. September 27, 2015)>