A new invention could make a sustained presence on the Moon more feasible.
Both the U.S. and China have set their sights on the Moon, aiming to break ground on permanent lunar bases within the next decade. Though there’s no legal basis for claiming territory in space, whichever country gets there first will gain a coveted first-mover advantage, allowing it to set certain ground rules about who can do what, where.
But getting there first is only half the battle. Actually establishing a sustained lunar presence presents significant logistical and engineering challenges. One of the biggest hurdles is figuring out how to efficiently and affordably transport building materials from Earth to construct a Moon base, but a team of scientists at China’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) in Hefei, Anhui Province, may have already solved that problem.
In July, the researchers published test results for a prototype of a lunar regolith forming system in the journal Acta Astronautica. This 3D printer-like device makes strong construction bricks out of moondust, a.k.a. lunar regolith. Being able to produce building materials with resources readily available on the Moon would reduce the need for Earth-sourced materials, Yang Hoglun, a co-author and senior engineer at DSEL, told the Chinese state media agency Xinhua.
