Creating Building Bricks on the Moon Using Moon Dust: A Vision from Matthias Sperl

Matthias Sperl of the German Aeronautics and Space Center (DLR) is working on a vision of creating something beyond Earth. Precisely the bricks that will be used for the construction of buildings on the moon.

His vision is that later on the moon there will be residential houses, houses for cultivating plants, warehouses and paved roads. In addition, there are protective walls and foundations for radio telescopes and other large engineering equipment.

It’s a big vision, because it means people construct buildings under extreme conditions. For example cosmic radiation and temperature differences of up to more than 100°C to well below -100°C. Transporting building materials to the moon would cost a lot. So that only one material can be taken into account, and it is on site. That is moon dust.

For the tests conducted on Earth, the materials researchers used volcanic ash. From physical and chemical properties, volcanic dust is almost like moon dust.

Matthias Sperl said, these artificial stones certainly don’t look perfect, and later they won’t be perfect either. The important thing is, this method is easy and available, as well as robust. So it can be installed without much difficulty, in locations where there is no power source.

Take advantage of solar radiation

There is no electricity, but there is sunlight. Sunlight can create high temperatures, for burning bricks, either on the surface of the moon, or in ovens operating with sunlight, at research sites at the German Aeronautics and Space Center.

For that use a Heliostat. A large mirror, which reflects sunlight into what is called a “concentrator”. It has 159 mirrors in a honeycomb pattern, and concentrates light up to 5,000 times, and directs it into the interior of the solar oven. It is an integrated and highly focused beam of light. This tool generates temperatures up to 2,500°C.

That’s the temperature needed to roast the “moon dust” sheet by sheet. On a special table, which prints according to the program, bricks are created via a kind of 3D printer. The light beam becomes the printer nozzle.

“The big advantage of this method is, if we print three-dimensionally one sheet at a time, then on location, we can be more flexible. In addition, we can build something on site with less materials, according to what is needed there,” said the researcher Material Matthias Sperl.

Engineering geometric shapes

To make construction on the moon as simple as possible, researchers are trying to create geometric shapes that can support each other. No concrete or supporting framework. That’s all the material that previously had to be transported to the moon.

But can what works on Earth also work on the moon with the conditions there? Matthias Sperl said, an important parameter on the moon is the absence of air. So at DLR in Cologne, part of their experiment was done in a solar oven with a vacuum chamber. And with a vacuum chamber, they want to determine whether the process of baking sand from the moon really depends on the presence of oxygen or not.

The result: even without an atmosphere, as is the case on the moon, this process works. Finally, from the “moon dust” formed rock, solid as plaster. In this way, even now on the moon can be made thick walls, to protect astronauts from exposure to cosmic radiation. (ml/as)