Print Me A Moon Base, Pronto.

Always happy to come across news that there are teams of dedicated people with wide-ranging and creative minds out there working hard to make my space dreams come true, I was fascinated to read about UK-based architects Foster and Partners being hired by the European Space Agency to design a potential lunar base on the southern pole of the Moon. Go team!

But wait, there's more.

The truly nifty thing is that instead of dragging truckloads of materials from Mother Earth to the Moon, a wasteful and expensive process that reeks of financial and political dependency on the homeworld (okay, I'll admit it, I've been mightily brainwashed influenced by KSR's Red Mars series) they're investigating a cheaper option using lunar soil, or regolith, as the building matter. Or rather, as the "printing" matter, for they plan to whip up a concoction that they can pop into their moon bound 3D printer and, hopefully, out will come the components they need to create a "catenary" dome that can house four people and shield them against radiation and meteorites.

So maybe it'll soon be a matter of simply printing up a spaceship to get there too. Possibly the future will look like something along the lines of "Have Space Suit and a Printer Under One Arm - Will Travel".

 Anyway, science. Love it!