3D printing is a necessity for a colony on Mars

Mars is a long way away. At its closest, it’s 54.6 million kilometres away (9 months travel). At it’s furthest? 401 million km. This creates some problems for a manned landing, problems we are currently trying to solve.

One of these problems is sheltering our brave astronauts who land, which 3D printing can help with.

The supply problem: martian dust filaments?

The first breakthrough relevant to housing our astronauts is this year’s development in martian dust printing, by Ramille Shah and her team. This research used NASA-approved martian dust simulants, and managed to 3D-print structures from it. This dust has a similar shape and size to real dust, as well as a similar composition. Shah’s team used the dusts, some simple solvents, and biopolymer, to 3D print using an extrusion process. Over 90% of the structure was composed of dust after completion by weight.

“For places like other planets and moons, where resources are limited, people would need to use what is available on that planet in order to live,” said Shah. “Our 3D paints really open up the ability to print different functional or structural objects to make habitats beyond Earth.”