Return to the moon? 3D printing with Moondust could be the key to future lunar life

This article was originally published at The conversation. The publication contributed to the article by Space.com Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The Apollo 11 mission on the moon lasted only eight days. If we ever want to build permanent bases on the moon, or even on Mars or beyond, the future astronauts will have to spend several more days, months and maybe even years in space without a vital connection to the Earth. The question is how they would get everything they needed. Using rockets to send all the equipment and supplies needed to build and maintain long-lasting colonies on the moon would be extremely expensive.

This is where 3D printing could come in, allowing astronauts to build from raw materials everything their lunar colony would need. Much of the enthusiasm aroused by 3D printing in the space has been focused on its use to build buildings from lunar rocks. But my research suggests that it may be more practical to use this moon dust to provide lunar manufacturing labs producing replacement components for all kinds of equipment.

Technically known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing includes a sophisticated group of technologies capable of producing physical products of almost any geometric shape and complexity from digital designs. Technology can already manufacture a wide range of materials, including metals, ceramics and plastics, some of which can be used to make space-quality equipment.

3D printing also has the added benefit of working with minimal human involvement. You can simply set it up to print and wait for the finished product. This means that it can even be used remotely. In theory, you could send a 3D printer on the moon (or any other space destination) in front of a human crew and start making structures even before the astronauts arrive.

There are, of course, important challenges. 3D printing was primarily developed for use on Earth, relying on certain constant levels of gravity and temperature to function as intended. Until now, he uses much less complex materials than those found on the surface of the Moon or Mars.

Impression with Moondust

The moon is covered with regolith, a loose, powdery material made up of millions of meteors bombarding the surface of the moon. This slowly transformed the upper layers of the bedrock into a soil-like material composed of grains less than a few millimeters in diameter. Although you can theoretically use the regolith for the manufacture of additives, for 3D printed houses or even for basic components such as bricks and cement, you would need additional materials from the Earth for mix with regolith, such as liquid binders.

My colleagues and I looked for ways to print in 3D a whole range of technical components using only regolith. Our technique is to use a laser to transform a very small amount of energy into heat, able to melt and fuse grains of regolith to form a thin but solid slice of the material. By repeating this process multiple times and adding multiple layers in sequence, we can eventually create a three-dimensional object.

Each layer is less than 1 mm thick and the construction of large structures such as walls or complete shelters would therefore take a long time. On the contrary, it is much better to produce very detailed, smaller and precisely designed objects, such as anti-dust or anti-water filters, which generally require holes smaller than 0.001 mm. 3D printing would be particularly useful for reproducing essential components if they were to be damaged or worn out, and needed to be replaced faster than a refueling ship would be needed to bring a new one from the Earth .

To learn how to make 3D printing work in space, we conducted a thorough investigation of materials and processes, and we tried to understand the impact that conditions on the moon might have on them. Without immediate supply in true regolith, we used a material imitating its bulk chemical and mineral composition. This was formed in very different conditions from a meteor bomber, but it is complex enough for us to study its interaction with the laser and use that knowledge to estimate the real-world response.

Thanos Goulas, Postdoctoral Associate Researcher, Additive Manufacturing Research Group, University of Loughborough

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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