Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

 

NASA’s Centennial Challenges includes an innovative 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge – a competition that was initiated last May.

NASA and the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute — known as America Makes — are holding a new $2.25 million competition to design and build a 3-D printed habitat for deep space exploration, including the agency’s journey to Mars.

Last week, the top 30 finalists for the Challenge were announced

Construction technology

The multi-phase 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge is designed to advance the additive construction technology needed to create sustainable housing solutions for Earth and beyond.

The top 30 submissions will be judged and a prize purse of $50,000 will be awarded at the 2015 World Maker Faire in New York.

The first phase of the competition runs through Sept. 27, 2015. This phase, a design competition, calls on participants to develop state-of-the-art architectural concepts that take advantage of the unique capabilities 3-D printing offers.

Two levels

The second phase of the competition is divided into two levels.

Level 1: The Structural Member Competition focuses on the fabrication technologies needed to manufacture structural components from a combination of indigenous materials and recyclables, or indigenous materials alone.

Level 2: The On-Site Habitat Competition challenges competitors to fabricate full-scale habitats using indigenous materials or indigenous materials combined with recyclables.

Both levels open for registration Sept. 26, and each carries a $1.1 million prize.

Going native on Mars

Among the winning entries, checkout:

Team LavaHive, a design of LIQUIFER Systems Group of Vienna, Austria. It’s a modular, additive-manufactured Martian habitat design using a proposed novel “lava-casting” construction technique as well as utilizing recycled spacecraft materials and structures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nested 3D-Printed Settlement Technology (N3ST) is from Team N.E.S.T. of Chile. Their design is a safe-to-fail design based on the principles of redundancy, simplicity and incrementalism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mollusca L5 is the design of LeeLabs of Brooklyn, New York. Their concept proposes a design and methodology for a Mars shell/membrane system to create a protected space for inflated habitation modules and outdoor areas while utilizing 100 percent indigenous materials as the 3D printing substrate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEO Native is the output from MOA Architecture of Denver, Colorado. In their submission, they say that the 3D printer of the future will be capable of scanning surrounding geology to create an adaptation of local environmental conditions based on thermal and solar requirements, soil characteristics, wind patterns, radiation hazards, and structural foundation requirements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to an inspiring gallery of all the design finalists at:

http://3dpchallenge.tumblr.com/