Norman Foster Designs Lunar Habitations

The 3D printing news keeps getting crazier. Last week Janjaap Ruijssenaars's proposal to print a house was making headlines, but this week it is Norman Foster's design for a lunar base to be 3D printed with the moon's soil as building matter (both designs will take advantage of the D-Shape printer). Foster is working with the European Space Agency to explore fabricating the dwelling via the popular technology, having already created a 1.5-ton "building block" with simulated lunar soil.

Per a statement on Foster + Partners' website, "The practice has designed a lunar base to house four people, which can offer protection from meteorites, gamma radiation and high temperature fluctuations. The base is first unfolded from a tubular module that can be transported by space rocket. An inflatable dome then extends from one end of this cylinder to provide a support structure for construction. Layers of regolith are then built up over the dome by a robot-operated 3D printer to create a protective shell."