With civilization’s desire to set up habitable colonies on other planets reaching a fever pitch as of late, it’s no surprise research firms across the globe have set out to develop easy-to-build structures capable of withstanding the harshest of elements. To fuel this passion, NASA devised an open challenge last May which tasked American-based design firms with developing plans for 3D-printed habitats fit to sustain life on Mars.
Though the competition required these firms to be located in the United States, a French company named Fabulous decided to forgo this stipulation and arguably just submitted one of the contest’s most intriguing ideas.
Fabulous’ plan, which NASA has yet to announce whether it will consider, calls for the construction of a multi-level bubble home that’s fully 3D-printed using only Martian soil as the raw material. The design intends to make use of Mars’ iron oxide-rich soil to assist in creating a structure which resists the planet’s low atmospheric density. Moreover, Fabulous also plans to make use of the planet’s abundance of permafrost to create an exterior water pocket that will defend the structure from solar radiation.
Construction of Fabulous’ bubble home would begin by drilling a large central pillar — outfitted with two robotic arms — into the planet’s terrain. Once drilling ends, the robotic arms will then set out to harvest the necessary iron oxide and permafrost before beginning to assemble the structure. With the raw materials in hand, or in robotic hands, a laser will then be used to 3D-print the two-story habitat layer by layer. Fabulous intends the printer to build a two-story structure with the top floor serving as a workspace and indoor garden, while the bottom floor contains a future crew’s sleeping quarters.
To test its design, Fabulous intends to travel to both Hawaii and the Mojave Desert in California, attracted by these two region’s similar soil composition. If all goes according to plan, the French company has pinpointed Mars’ Gale crater as the best possible spot to construct the habitat given the area’s richness of iron oxide and likely presence of water. And if testing of this idea shows as much promise in real life as it does on paper, Fabulous may receive a nice phone call from NASA regarding these bubble homes very soon.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.