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Many hundreds of Moon rocks were
brought back from the Apollo missions
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The US researchers have used
a 3D printer to make small objects out of melted simulated lunar rocks.
They say the technique could help future missions to minimize
the weight and the expense of carrying materials into space as a digital file
would be enough.
But one expert says such a printer would have to be extremely
precise.
In 2010, NASA asked a team from Washington State
University to see whether it was possible to use lunar rocks for 3D printing.
It supplied the researchers with simulated Moon rocks, or
lunar regolith simulant, containing silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron and
magnesium oxides.
Many hundreds of kilograms of Moon rocks were collected
during NASA missions, but the scientists did not use them because they are
considered a national treasure in the US.
Lunar regolith simulant is commonly used for research
purposes at NASA.
"It sounds like science fiction, but now it's really
possible," said Prof Amit Bandyopadhyay, the lead author of the study,
published in the Rapid Prototyping Journal.
His team created simple 3D shapes by sending a digital
file or scan to a printer which then built the items layer by layer out of
melted lunar regolith, fed via a carefully controlled nozzle to form a shape.
The process is known as "additive manufacturing".
A laser was used to
melt the material.
"As long as you
can have additive manufacturing set up, you may be able to scoop up and print
whatever you want. It's not that far-fetched," said Prof Bandyopadhyay.
The research
demonstrates the latest advances in 3D printing technology, which is already in
use in medicine, fashion, car manufacturing and other industries.
Sophisticated
But Prof Colin
Pillinger, the scientist behind the ill-fated Beagle-2 mission to Mars, said
the printer would have to be really precise to be able to fabricate complex
parts that usually make up the body of a spacecraft.
"It would be nice
if you could do that but I'm not sure it would work - it depends whether it is
a simple mechanical component or something more complex," Prof Pillinger,
who now works at the Planetary and Space Sciences department at the Open
University, told BBC News.
"If you break
your car on a motorway and have to replace your wheel, and you just print one
it's a mechanical component, but if it's something more sophisticated like an
electrical component to run your car, it's a different story.
"Of course, if
you don't have to take a wheel to the Moon its great, but if it's not a
mechanical part that breaks but something more sophisticated than I'm not sure
it would work."
However, David Woods,
author of How Apollo Flew to the Moon, was more positive.
"The important
thing to consider is that the Earth has a very deep gravity well so anything
you can make in situ on the Moon will save an awful lot of energy and therefore
money," he said.
"So it's better
to be able to live off the land. That's why scientists are so interested in
water at poles, and the fact Moon dust works well with microwaves and could
theoretically be used to make a paved surface if you created roads.
"Such
technologies are untested but they do open up the possibility of future
colonisation of the Moon, even if only for scientific purposes."
But putting the theory
into practice may be some way off. A project to put astronauts back on the Moon
by 2020 was cancelled by President Obama on cost grounds, though NASA still has
longer-term plans for a lunar return.
