NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Competition | Hacker News Reader

NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Competition

nasa.gov

59 pointssoulmerge13 comments

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These are the videos of the winning entries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnrVV0w2jrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_BN_xJZMOk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxoqs18BOoE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxzoO9ADqOE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZEUYKePV_0

1. Team Zopherus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZEUYKePV_0

2. AI SpaceFactory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnrVV0w2jrE

3. Kahn Yates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_BN_xJZMOk

4. SEArch+/Apis Cor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxoqs18BOoE

5. Northwestern University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxzoO9ADqOE

Everyone but AI SpaceFactory went with a dome like structure. I liked AI's explanation about why not build a dome. Pretty interesting ideas overall.

probably unrelated but anyone here knows any resources for 3d printed houses here on earth? specifically in europe. i know of https://www.iconbuild.com/home for US market

https://cybe.eu/

thanks!

Material strength is really important. Atmospheric pressure is about 14 pounds per inch at sea level. You can probably drop that to 10 pounds per inch or maybe less. For a square foot of wall, at 10, you would be at 12 * 12 * 10 or 1440 pounds of pressure. So for the cylinder style of design a one foot high band say 30 feet in diameter would have over 40,000 pounds pushing on it. That design uses basalt fiber, which has been around for quite some time and is quite strong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt_fiber

I think that's a good argument for building below grade. For instance, you dig a big hole, build a dome-like shell, bury it in dirt leaving a reinforced tunnel to the surface for a stairwell, then inflate a balloon inside the shell to provide an airtight living area. The weight of the ground counteracts the air pressure and it acts as a radiation shield.

(Alternatively, one could build the dome from the top down, excavating as you go.)

If dirt is about 80 pounds per square foot (I'll assume for the sake of argument that that's in the ballpark of the typical density of Martian sand), that's about 32 pounds in Mars gravity, or about 0.22 pounds per square inch per foot of depth. So, it would take about 45 feet of depth for the weight of the ground to match 10 psi of air pressure. Maybe that's a little too deep to be practical for a pure compressive structure, but maybe ten or twenty feet of depth can offset a significant amount of the tension even if the interior pressure is more than the weight of the ground on top.

I suppose you could also mound a pile of dirt on top over time.

This is amazing! Really innovative designs and ideas. As 3D printing is a new technology, even on Earth, I wonder if there are traditional designs using bricks or other materials created from the native soils and rocks that would potentially have more understood construction properties and lifespans.

The additional bet of building something on an entirely new planet an entirely new way seem risky. (but awesome, if someone from NASA is reading this; don't stop)

I assume initial habitats will be inflatable since those are easiest to transport.

AI. SpaceFactory's Marsha seems simple yet elegant, not too much of an exotic architectural design but also (IMHO) based on possible 3D printing engineering. I like the idea of having the printing machinery separate from the building and the logic behind going with that shape. Loved it.

Now to figure out the easiest way to make the materials in situ.

This is why Elon is so into tunnel boring machines. mars habitats will be underground, or cut into the side of bluff’s canyons. Think dwarf fortress on Mars. this is the simple in-situ solution to both radiation shielding and pressurization. Might not be that much fun though to live underground all the time.

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