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3D Printing With Moon Regolith Simulant (Moon Dust)

Earlier this month I wrote about a 3D printer optimized for space. It now turns out that this printer is now able to 3D print whatever you want using moon dust.


(3D Printing With Moon Regolith)

"Wouldn't it be cool if you could take 3D printers to the Moon and build with Moon dust? That's actually what we're working on now... We've taken our 3D printers that we've adapted for space on the International Space Station and started building parts and tools [using moon dust simulant] so when we go back to the Moon we can build what we want where we want it..."

I'd like to point out that in his 1951 novel The Moon is Hell, John W. Campbell wrote about marooned members of the second lunar expedition surviving by manufacturing solar cells using lunar materials.

It turns out that there is an earlier successful effort to run a 3D printer on moon regolith simulatant; see this 2012 article 3D Printer Runs on Moon Dust.

For some reason, I enjoy lunar dust stories; perhaps you will, too:

Via Singularity Hub.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/22/2014)

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