China is serious about building its own base on the Moon. For this purpose, it is planned to use local material in the form of blocks. Experiments in this direction have recently begun.
Experiment on the Chinese space station
China is aiming to advance its desire to build the first lunar base by launching a space experiment to see if bricks for the base can be made from the moon’s own soil.
A cargo rocket carrying brick samples launched late Friday night to the Tiangong space station, serving as part of Beijing’s mission to land humans on the Moon by 2030 and build a permanent base there by 2035. “China launched the cargo craft Tianzhou-8 from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Friday night to deliver supplies for its orbiting Tiangong space station,”
Building a base on the Moon is a complex task: any construction must withstand huge amounts of cosmic radiation, extreme temperature differences and moonquakes, and transporting construction materials to the Moon is an expensive procedure.
Scientists from a university in the central province of Wuhan hope that building a base from the Moon itself could be a solution to these problems.
Building materials in space
Scientists have created a series of prototype bricks made from different compositions of materials found on Earth, such as basalt, that mimic the properties of lunar soil.
The debris from these bricks will undergo a series of rigorous tests as they reach the space station. Temperatures on the Moon can fluctuate dramatically from 180 to -190 degrees Celsius (356 to -310 degrees Fahrenheit).
The lack of an atmosphere means that the Moon is exposed to a lot of cosmic radiation as well as micrometeorites, while lunar moonquakes can weaken any structure on its surface. The experiment will last three years and samples will be sent back annually for testing.
3D printing materials on the Moon
The team of Zhou Cheng, a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, developed their brick prototype after analyzing soil brought back by China’s Chang’e-5 probe.
The resulting black bricks are three times stronger than standard bricks and bond together without binder, he said.
The team also worked on the “Lunar Spider”, a 3D printing robot that builds structures in space, some of which are conical.
“In the future, our plan is definitely to use resources on-site, that is, make bricks directly from the lunar soil, and then do various construction scenarios, so we won’t be bringing the materials from Earth,” said Zhou.
“It’s an obvious thing to try” because using materials already on the Moon would be much cheaper, said Jacco van Loon” said Jaco van Loon, an astrophysicist at Keele University in the UK.
Back to the Moon
Beijing is far from the only one aiming to build the first lunar base. China’s planned outpost on the Moon, known as the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), is a joint project with russia. A dozen countries, including Thailand, Pakistan, Venezuela and Senegal, as well as about 40 foreign organizations are partners in the initiative, according to Chinese state media.
The United States intends to return humans to the Moon in 2026 and subsequently build a station there, although its Artemis program has already undergone various delays.
In U.S. preparation, researchers at the University of Central Florida are testing their own potential building bricks made with 3D printers.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency has been researching how to assemble bricks along the lines of a Lego constructor.
Provided by phys.org
