Picture credit: v2osk on Unsplash
European Space Agency (ESA) scientists have been messing about with ‘space dust’ Lego bricks as part of a plan to build on the Moon. The 3D-printed bricks are made from a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite, which is meant to simulate lunar regolith – the loose material on the surface of Earth’s Moon.
Developing space bricks is one part of the ESA’s contribution to the Artemis programme. This is an international programme which aims to return humans to the moon, to build there, and to prepare for future Mars missions.
Ultimately, when humans build a lunar base on the moon, transporting building materials from Earth will be expensive and time consuming, so it makes sense to build with materials that are already present. Within the field of space exploration, this is called In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) and is something the ESA’s Spaceship EAC team is focused on. The team is based at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany.
Working on the Lego bricks, the team ground bits of meteorite into dust, then mixed it with polylactic acid (a biodegradable bioplastic), plus ‘regolith simulant’ which is a mixture of Earth minerals with a similar composition to the Moon’s surface.
The bricks appear rougher than an average Lego brick but could still be built into a range of designs by the ESA’s scientists. Individual examples of the bricks have been on display in selected Lego stores.
A lot of what the Spaceship EAC team is doing is interesting in terms of what it could mean both for space exploration and beyond. Something that works in space could also have a positive impact here on planet Earth. The team’s activities include:
Energy – developing stand-alone power systems based on hydrogen technology, and novel approaches to energy storage, including exploiting space resources.
Manufacturing – 3D printing with regolith and standard 3D printing to support exploration.
Disruptive Tech – including virtual and augmented reality, robotics, AI, human factors, human-machine interface, and Internet of Things (IoT).
Physiology – exploring how lunar gravity and radiation impacts on human physiology and potential countermeasures, plus remote and autonomous management of astronaut health.
Resources – planetary surface exploration, resource extraction and novel use of ISRU techniques.
It’s fascinating to learn about the reality of developments in space exploration versus what we see in science fiction. When you watch a film which is set on another planet, the buildings are often made of steel, rather than space dust bricks. But the reality is, we are not likely to transport steel to the moon any time soon. And making steel on the moon sounds like science fiction too.
That said, NASA’s 2023 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge asked university students to design a method for producing metal on the Moon. The winning team from the University of Utah, partnered with Powder Metallurgy Research Laboratory, created a lunar forge project to extract iron from reduced lunar regolith and refine it into a high purity powder product in a two-stage process.
I don’t think moon-based iron extraction will be starting any time soon, but it will be interesting to see what humans build on the moon. The Artemis programme has a crewed lunar landing scheduled towards the end of 2026, so watch this space.
In the meantime, if you need assistance with the structural elements of an upcoming project – ideally on planet Earth – please do get in touch.
