Starchitect Norman Foster To Design A 3-D Printed Lunar Base

What is going to power all this and distribute the power? I am just curious.

It would be awesome to establish ourselves on the Moon, asteroids, space, planets and more...... happy day dream sigh....

Making lunar power:

inlportal.inl.gov/portal/server.pt/community/newsroom/257/feature_story_details/1269?featurestory=DA_582156

ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=1149636

Don't you just hate it when you click on a Popular Science link like to the Photo Gallery above and get greeted with the message "you are not authorized to view this page"?

What gives Pop Sci are you charging now for your free services?

Well, supposedly the world is supposed to have a working fusion power plant by 2035, and if that happens...well it will pretty much make a lot of space stuff possible. I know there's been Fusion tests before, but it's only been for seconds or minutes. Sustainable Fusion would be a huge jump for us. I guess it depends where this is all built, but maybe solar power too?

I think there would be a definite need for solar powered moon rakers. (to erase the inevitable tracks and footprints )

Why not utilize all that Helium 3 that's suppose to be up there? Then again, It'd be a shame to look up and see the moon resembling some West Virginia strip mine. A while back I read about a small, buried nuclear reactor that used uranium pellets. Anyone remember that?

Seems like a great concept, and i also read the link that you posted, robot. if we were to combine these two things and have each lunar "house" the center of a solar array and radio beamer (is that a word?), we could have reliable energy, not only on the moon for colonization, but also here, where it is needed more than ever.

I've always wondered why space structures were never designed like traditional igloos where the materials to make it come from within the structure itself. Essentially, dig a pit and use the regolith to build a dome over top. It seems that, even in designs that look like igloos such as this, the building is still built ON the surface rather than IN it.

I've been making a film about Enrico Dini and his work with Fosters on this project (and others) for two years. The film is going to be released this year, so if anyone's interested, check out the trailer: http://www.themanwhoprintshouses.com/Trailer.html

From the first picture of the house on the moon, why are they opening the windows on top? Are they letting the hot fresh air out or the cool fresh vacuum of space,.... bizarre?

@Robot: That`s the cupola. It`s build by ESA and a real one is on the International space station. It allows beautiful observations of earth through it`s large windows. They are not opening the windows. This is glass covered by extra shielding that is closed when no one is using the window for observations.

A very good idea to use these on a potential moon base as well.

Greenmatrix,
Yea, I can see your point or added info!

The moon is a terrible place to live due to insufficient gravity for human health.

Thus, habitation need never be more than waypoint bunkers for short term scientific and maintanence work. Any value in the moon would come from robotic mining.

In other words, when we can build homes on the moon, we won't need homes on the moon.

@ Oakspar77777; So you don't think a weighty resistance suit combined with impact work sessions would work?

Really great idea…I love it.

However, given the current financial situation in Europe and the past record of European commitment to space science, one of two things can be done with this plan:

1)File it away along with the numerous other far reaching ideas that European scientists and engineers have come up that are not going to be developed due to lack of governmental interest.

2) Take it to China where it will probably have the best chance of becoming a reality.

We already have this. Rockwell, in cooperation with NASA, built a plan for a lunar base designed to be built on the moon, using solar power for the main source, creating glass sheets via a concentrator, and assembling them with a gel between layers to prevent air leakage and protect against micro-meteors. I'm leaving out tons of details, but the original plan is book size. It's a brilliant plan, well done, with light technology needs, and no new tech. It was created over a few years and put out in 1989! we've had it for that long, yet still haven't utilized it! It would be very inexpensive, by space standards, today, it's a darn shame we don't go with it.

It is wholy irresponsible to spend billions of dollars to put a "base" on the moon which will have about has much return as our current money pit of space station. We our promised great things by people who will say almost anything to get funding for their projects at NASA. But, where are the results. The first moon missions were conducted to demonstrate our technological superiority to our enemies during the cold war. We know what the moon is composed of. We have the samples. The moon has been there billions of years and isn't going to change in the foreseeable future. There are serious problems on the Earth that can't wait. We need to get our priorities straight.

That 3D construction technology could be put to good use right here for constructing things we need.