Scientists for the US space agency have explained how they plan to blast a 3D printer up to Earth's only natural satellite. Using moon dust and rock chips, a lunar concrete will be made which will then be used to build the moon's first ever buildings.

“We’re at a pivotal moment, and in some ways it feels like a dream sequence,” Niki Werkheiser, NASA’s director of technology maturation, told the New York Times. “In other ways, it feels like it was inevitable that we would get here.”

When she was growing up in Tennessee, her family owned a small construction business and, in a way, she continues that for NASA.

The lunar dust, which scientists hope will prove a key part of building processes, is very fine and swirls over the planet's surface. It is toxic and abrasive. But if homes can be built on earth using the soil and minerals found here, researchers hope to do the same in space.

All crewed moon landings took place between July 1969 and December 1972 as part of the United States Apollo program. But since then, no one has walked on the moon. NASA hopes this new mission, named Artemis (the twin sister of Apollo) will get people back on the moon.

Last November, Artemis I, blasted off with only robots on board to circle the moon before returning to Earth. Artemis II will carry four human crew, including the first woman and the first Black person to go to space. It is planned for November 2024.

That mission will be followed up one year later by Artemis III, which will see humans land on the moon again for the first time in over 50 years.

Dr. Clinton, 71, says that there are people alive who could end up living on the moon and he wishes he could be around to see it.

“When we talk about a sustainable human presence, to me that means that you have a lunar settlement and you have people living and working on the moon continuously,” he said. “What that could be is only up to the imagination of entrepreneurs.”

NASA has partnered with ICON, a construction tech firm based in Austin, Texas, to reach its 2040 goal. ICON received funding from the space agency in 2020 and some more in 2022. They hope to develop a space-based construction system that could be used to print everything from lunar houses to rocket landing pads.

So far the plans are still in the rendering phase but architects at both the Bjarke Ingels Group and SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) are also involved.

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