The world wants to build a base on the moon.

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**Breotan**

More like the world wants to sit around and talk about building a base on the moon.

http://mic.com/articles/131583/the-world-is-racing-to-build-a-moon-base-here-s-what-it-could-look-like#.F9QCYq1G7

The World Is Racing to Build a Moon Base — Here's What It Could Look Like

The European Space Agency just reminded the world that it wants to build a base on the moon by 2030, using 3-D printed parts made from materials found on the lunar surface.

The ESA has some competition. Earlier this month, Congress passed a spending bill that would give NASA $55 million to build a space habitat for deep-space exploration, including both the space within the moon's orbit and, eventually, Mars. The only catch: NASA has 180 days to show what it's going to be.

It's a global space race to live on the moon. Around 26 nations want to figure out what that's going to look like.

In the past, NASA has been a big fan of expandable, inflatable modules, like the ones made by Bigelow Aerospace. The ESA's concept art shows buildings made out of the natural elements found on the lunar surface. This idea isn't far-fetched; product designers have used sand to print in the past.

NASA already uses a 3-D printer that's able to print in a vacuum. It can build tools and little bits and pieces for the International Space Station that would otherwise be tremendously expensive to send. If the walls, or even the entire structure, could be built on the moon instead of being shipped, we could have pretty large structures. Earlier this year, an architect revealed his own plans to 3-D print a 2,400-square-foot house using just dust, sand and gravel. And that one had a swimming pool, jacuzzi and garage.

Obviously, a moon base wouldn't need that — at least, not right away. An Italian coffee company sent a zero-gravity espresso machine to astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, so obviously there's room for a little luxury in the cold darkness of space. But this base would need places to grow plants, which was proven viable earlier this year when ISS astronauts ate red romaine they'd grown in the space station.

While the ESA (and China) are looking at lunar bases in the next couple decades, and NASA is looking at the space in the moon's orbit, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who recently proved he could build a reusable rocket and screw with Russia's aerospace-based income, is focused on settling Mars around 2040.

As we count down to the end of 2015 and reflect on all of the major leaps in science this year, it should give space geeks a warm feeling to know that 2016 will include multiple space races — both between Musk and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos, and between all the nations chomping at the bit to rocket humanity deeper into the galaxy.

Wouldn't it be easier to ship an "inflatable" module you could mix your cement or clay in and make your bricks that way? Mix them during the night and let the sun broil them solid during the day.

**KaptinBadrukk**

Interesting.

**Tyr13**

Breotan wrote:

Wouldn't it be easier to ship an "inflatable" module you could mix your cement or clay in and make your bricks that way? Mix them during the night and let the sun broil them solid during the day.

Not really. Youd still need the material to *make* your cement. And the reactions that make it solid might not even work on the moon... pretty sure cement needs an atmosphere to set, and youve only got a limited supply of that. Besides, if you built bricks, youd need to be really good at sealing those seams. If you print stuff, you can build a whole module in one go.

**Grey Templar**

It depends on which cement they use. You couldn't use Non-hydraulic cement on the moon, unless you brought the CO2 for it to react with and covered it in a canopy to contain it.

Regular cement, which sets in the presence of water would work as once its mixed nothing further needs to be done. It can just be mixed and poured.

So both types would need you to bring extra materials. Non-hydraulic would be more of a pain though as you'd need to cover the cement with a gas canopy. Regular cement would just need to be mixed with water.

**sirlynchmob**

I wonder if the base will be built over my plot of land. I suppose I could rent them the land for their base, I knew buying land on the moon and mars would pay off one of these days

If you'd like to buy some plots here's the site:
http://lunarregistry.com/

**Jihadin**

Tunneler.

Be cheaper then a habitat.

**Mr Morden**

Hopefully this will actually happen

**Iron_Captain**

Mr Morden wrote:
Hopefully this will actually happen

Or maybe not. I can already imagine the wars over which country gets to own what pieces of the moon.

**Asherian Command**

Que terrorist threats, Que religious whackos, Que World enders, Que Cthulhu cultists and etc.

Yeah I am excited for this but the reaction is going to happen very VERY soon.

**toasteroven**

Asherian Command wrote:
Que Cthulhu cultists.

Man, everyone knows that Cthulu ain't on the moon!

Though that doesn't mean the moon can't bring horrors of it's own...

**Mr. Burning**

Is this article from the late nineteen fourties?

Can't help being pessimistic about space exploration and the talk about it. Especially building lunar bases.

**Breotan**

Tyr13 wrote:
Breotan wrote:

Wouldn't it be easier to ship an "inflatable" module you could mix your cement or clay in and make your bricks that way? Mix them during the night and let the sun broil them solid during the day.

Not really. Youd still need the material to *make* your cement.

There is a proposed substance called Lunarcrete which could use materials found on the moon, but requires a pressurized containment in order to mix like regular cement would. The question would be, how much water is available on the moon. The big problem is that there are a LOT of competing needs for water in any lunar project.

**Grey Templar**

I imagine any project like this would involve regular resupply from Earth. Though I do seem to recall that the moon has a fair amount of oxygen and hydrogen in some of the compounds on its surface, including hydrogen coming in from the sun itself.

**Jihadin**

Eventually though it should become self contain and become less dependent of resources from Earth. Someone name Riker should be in charge up there

**Breotan**

Jihadin wrote:
Someone name Riker should be in charge up there

Why? We already gave him an island. Look how that turned out.