3D printers could fabricate tools out of moon dust

One of the challenges of couch a settlement on the synodic month is the need for stuff : build materials , food , and pecker . Fortunately , researchers at Washington State University are working on a project that would help oneself lunar colonists make some of those tools properly at home : developing3D pressman that can print puppet out of lunar month careen .

In 2010 , NASA draw near Amit Bandyopadhyay , a prof in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University , about the possibility of print 3D stuff out of regolith , the substance that covers the surface of the moon . Bandyopadhyay and fellow professor Susmita Bose are well - known 3D impression researcher who have created 3-D - printed ivory - like social system for orthopedic implants . NASA provided their team with 10 pounds of crude lunar regolith simulant — the material NASA uses to study moonlight rocks — and they get to work .

So far , the results are n’t gorgeous , but they are promising . The researcher find that combination of Si , aluminium , calcium , iron and atomic number 12 oxide melts in a fashion similar to silica , and were able to fabricate a few mere shapes using a 3D printer . Bandyopadhyay suggests that meld the regolith with some Earth - based additive could increase the possibilities for moon rock printing , take into account for stronger construction material — and greater control over the material ’s geometry — than with regolith alone .