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A multi-year NASA contest to design a printable 3D Mars habitat using materials on the planet has just taken another step – and a handful of teams have brought back hard money and cold. This more casual phase allowed participants to design their proposed habitat with the help of architectural tools, with the five winners to build models next year.
Technically, it is the first phase of the third phase – the second phase (real) Last year, the teams brought back a lot of money back home.
The teams had to assemble realistic 3D models of their proposed habitats, not just in Blender or elsewhere. They used the Building Information Modeling software which required that these elements be functional structures designed with a particular level of detail – so you can not have 2D walls in "material to be determined" and you have to take into account the thickness pressure sealing, elements filtering the air, heating, etc.
The habitats had to have at least a thousand square feet of space, enough for four people to live for a year, with room for machinery and associated tackle, you know, living on Mars. They must be largely assembled independently, at least enough so that humans can occupy them as soon as they land. They were judged on the completeness, layout, viability of 3D printing and aesthetics.
So, although the images you see here look more like science fiction, they were designed with industrial tools. range of Disney experience at NASA. "These go to Mars, no pocket, and they will have to be built in miniature for real next year, so they better be realistic."
The five winning designs embody a variety In all honesty, all these videos are worth watching, you will probably learn something cool, and they really give an idea of how the thinking goes in these drawings.
Zopherus has the whole of the printing takes place inside the body of a large LG, which brings its own blend of high-strength printing to reinforce the "Martian concrete" that will make up the bulk of the structure.When it has finished printing and incorporating prefabricated elements like the airlocks, he gets up, moves on a few feet, and starts again, creating a series small pieces. (They took first place and basically tied up the next team for a home case, just under $ 21K.)
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AI SpaceFactory focuses on the basic shape of the vertical cylinder as the most efficient use of space and also one of the most suitable for the 39; printing. They go deep on housing for thermal expansion and insulation, but also thought deeply about how to make space safe, functional and interesting. This one is definitely my favorite.
Kahn-Yates has a striking design, with a printed structural layer giving way to a layer of resistant plastic that lets in the light. Their design is extremely spacious but in my eyes not very efficiently attributed. Who will bring apple trees to Mars? Why have a spiral staircase with such a footprint? Yet, if they could do it, it would allow them to breathe a lot, which would surely be of great value during the year or the many years stay on the planet.
SEArch + / Apis Cor has carefully studied the positioning and shape of its design to maximize light and minimize the intensity of light. radiation exposure. There are two independent pressure zones – everyone loves redundancy – and it is built using a sloping site, which can increase the possible locations. He seems a little claustrophobic, though.
The Northwestern University has a design that aims for simplicity of construction: an inflatable boat provides the basis for that Printer creates a simple dome with reinforcing sleepers. This practical approach has probably earned them points, and inside, although not very spacious, is also practical in its layout. As AI SpaceFactory pointed out, a dome is not really the best shape (a lot of wasted space) but it is easy and strong. A couple of these connected at the end would not be so bad.
The teams split a total of $ 100,000 for this phase, and now move on to the difficult part of building these things. In the spring of 2019, they will need to have a custom 3D printer capable of creating a 1: 3 scale model of their habitat. It's hard to say who will have the worst time, but I think Kahn-Yates (this holey structure will be a pain to print) and SEArch + / Apis (slope, complex cornices and structures).
for the construction of the real world is a $ 2 million eye-popping, so you can bet that the competition will be fierce. While seriously watching these videos above, they are really interesting.
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Tags 3D Awards competition concepts hab Habitat Mars NASA prizes TechCrunch
