Rather than shuttling all the necessary materials up to the moon (which can be heavy and thus costly), the approach being considered is 3D printing. Architectural firm Foster and Partners is working with the European Space Agency on the effort. The idea is that you send the 3D printing robots to the moon, they collect the local moon rocks and soil, grind them all up, and 3D print out a dome-like structure where people can live and work.

In addition to the 3D printed portions, we’ll also need to bring in a lightweight pressurized inflatable. Together, they should be able to provide suitable protection against extreme temperatures and radiation. Foster and Partners has already tested this kind of technology in extreme Earth conditions, so they don’t see why it couldn’t be adapted to the moon’s surface. The structure itself will utilized hollow closed cells, not unlike what we find with bird bones. This provides strength while keeping weight low.

Monolite founder Enrico Dini has been working on these 3D building printers since 2010 and he says that current machines can produce at about 6.5 feet per hour. The next generation of machines will increase that to 11.5 feet an hour, effectively printing that lunar base in about a week. It seems like a fascinating idea, but I can’t help but think that this picture looks a lot like Tatooine. Maybe old Ben Kenobi can help us. You might even say he’s our only hope.

[Source]

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Remember that project proposed by BTE-Dan? Remember how he wanted to make a real life version of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek, drawing up all the necessary plans to do so? Thanks to some new DARPA funding, that dream could soon become a reality.

Sort of. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has just received $500,000 in seed money from the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence to form 100 Year Starship (100YSS). The goal of this non-governmental initiative is to facilitate human interstellar flight within the next 100 years. The independent organization works with experts across many fields–like scientists and engineers, as well as artists and entertainers–to achieve this goal.

To be fair, half a million dollars isn’t going to do much. The “proposed” Gen1 Enterprise is estimated to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of one billion dollars. We also have to realize that Voyager 1 is only just about to become the first manmade object to leave our solar system and it has taken the probe 35 years to get to the heliosphere. To have a starship capable of transporting humans that far for that long, let alone beyond our solar system, is quite the ambitious task indeed. Voyager 1, if it maintains its current pace of 3.6AU (about 334 million miles) per year would take another 75,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri, our next closest star.

As an aside, the Gen1 Enterprise is intended for intrastellar (within our solar system) missions, whereas the DARPA funding is more about going much, much further. Either way, I’m sure Neil deGrasse Tyson approves of this badass idea. We just have to come up with the other $999,500,000… and well, the tech and innovation to do it.

[Source]

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[Gizmodo via Xtraordinary Adventures, PRWeb]

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What are some of the things you can do with a Nexus One smartphone? Surf the web? Check your email? Play games? How about launching it 28,000 feet into the atmosphere, piggybacked on a rocket while recording the whole thing on video? Crazy, right? Well, that’s exactly what a group of rocket enthusiasts decided to do somewhere in the Nevada desert. The Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation strapped the Nexus One to the outside of an Intimidator-5 rocket and propelled the thing way up into the air.

Why would they do this? As it stands, satellites are far too big, far too bulky, and way too expensive. The idea is to find a low-cost satellite solution by using off the shelf products and components. According to Mavericks Foundation chairman Thomas Atchison, “The radio, processing power, sensors and cameras in smartphones potentially have the same capability as those in satellites.” With this test, the enthusiasts are better able to understand how a phone like the Nexus One can withstand the high-G environment, the vibrations associated with the rocket, the differences in temperature, and so forth.

A video of the rocket spiraling upwards into the outer atmosphere, then descending with a parachute:

Another video with Matthew Reyes explaining a SmallSat evolution from Maker Faire 2010:

[Gadget Lab, RocketMavericks via Make]
Photo: jurvetson/flickr

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Photo: Mars, NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Barrack Obama has been a busy man, as we all know. He’s had to deal with a country in recession, sliding dollar value and an expensive war overseas.

With all this on his plate, he’s held his head high and accepted the Nobel Peace prize. And like any good politician, made grand promises he has absolutely no intentions of keeping.

But SuperBama has another conquest on his itinerary.

Sending Man to Mars!

No, not a Chimp to mars, but astronauts first.  This has been clarified by NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden during a press conference, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010,  where he revealed that NASA has awarded $50 million to further the commercial sector’s capability to support and transport a crew to and from Earth.

The plan on how it’s going to happen has been described by Bolden as “evolutionary” which means “We have no idea at this point in time how it’s going to happen but we will get back to you.”

The good news is NASA’s 2011 fiscal budget has been approved, which means half the battle won. After all no mission into space under NASA’s tutelage is without an astronomical budget.  A few aerospace companies are going to be getting their own type of “bailout.”

NASA is extremely positive about this plan, despite disappearing rovers on the planet’s surface and unmanned craft orbiting and crash landing on Martian territory. Bolden has Obama’s backing. What they don’t have is the Congress senators backing, people who are critical of the mars mission, because they feel the moon is a more realistic and logical option first.

But as far as the moon is concerned there is this “been there, done that” attitude from NASA. And now you know why the Constellation program has been shut down.  On the other hand NASA has agreed to assist commercial companies in the U.S. to build space vehicles (Taxis) to transport astronauts to the Space Station which is being backed by about 6 billion in green backs, which also means we won’t be seeing the Hilton or the Ritz in space anytime soon.

The good news is the budget supports robotic ships launched into deep space to find viable planets for astronauts to explore.

Photo: NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

With the Constellation program being scrapped because it was going over budget,  this has hurt a few contractors such as Alliant Techsystems Inc and United Technologies Corp, which according to space shuttle engineer Michael Snyder is a large loss of time and experience.

NASA has the resources at the moment to fork up $50 million to companies for ideas on the astronaut space taxi service.  One wonders why it doesn’t have the resources to hire the right people for a project development cycle like the failed Constellation program – so that billions of tax dollars aren’t squandered without some constructive output.

But apparently the recession has no bearing on NASA.  Metaphorically speaking they do reside “In Space.”

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