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rfmcdonaldThe Dragon's Tales linked to this report suggesting the European Space Agency plans to use 3-D printing to build a base on the Moon.
For a while, the European Space Agency has been talking about the possibility of creating a base on the moon, using 3D printing for a large part of its construction. So far it’s been a lot of speculation, but this month the ESA reaffirmed that they are very serious about the plan – they intend to have a lunar base by the 2030s. At a recent symposium entitled “Moon 2020-2030: A New Era of Coordinated and Robotic Exploration,” the agency laid out plans for a series of missions, starting in the early 2020s, that will hopefully culminate in a human-occupied moon base.
The two-day symposium brought together more than 200 scientists and space officials from 28 countries to discuss what the ESA is calling a “comeback to the moon.” The plan is for a series of missions, beginning in the 2020s, that will start by sending robots to the moon, where they will communicate with astronauts back on Earth. The data gathered from these robotic missions will pave the way for humans to follow. Ultimately, the ESA sees a moon colony as a stopping point in the mission to get humans to Mars and to further explore the rest of the solar system.
