There are many Lego sets featuring astronauts, but now there are Lego bricks made from things astronauts find in space. Danish bricklayer (ESA) to make Lego pieces from actual meteorite dust. Pretty cool, right? They are exhibited Through September 20, including at the large 5th Avenue branch in Manhattan.
While this project is pretty fun, it’s not just for laughs. It’s a proof of concept to show how astronauts could use lunar dust to build lunar structures. Think about how much energy and money it takes to transport building materials from Earth to the Moon. Instead, building everything from pre-existing lunar materials would be a game changer.
The surface of the moon has a layer of rock and mineral deposits called lunar regolith. For a long time it was thought that some kind of regolith would be required . It is readily available and there are several promising ways to convert it into building materials. After all, people have been making structures out of dirt, earth, and sand for thousands of years.
However, Earth does not have many lunar regoliths for humans to test. ESA scientists actually created their own regolith by grinding up an old meteorite. The dust from this meteorite was turned into a mixture used to 3D print Lego pieces. Voila. Moon bricks. They snap together like regular Lego bricks, although they only come in one color (clear space gray).
“No one has ever built a structure on the moon, so it was great to have the flexibility to try all kinds of design and construction techniques with our space bricks. It was both fun and rewarding to scientifically understand the limits of these techniques,” he said. ESA Science Officer Aidan Cowley.
Humanity actually achieves to our first real Moon base. NASA has teamed up with the Italian Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space Corporation to build the first permanent human outpost on the moon, though that won’t happen until at least the 2030s. Recent designs for lunar habitats have ranged from something resembling a mobile home .
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