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The design competition challenged participants to develop architectural concepts that take advantage of the unique capabilities 3-D printing offers to imagine what habitats on Mars might look like using this technology and in-situ resources, Joinfo.ua reports with the reference to Space.com.
The first prize of $25,000 went Team Space Exploration Architecture and Clouds Architecture Office for their design, Mars Ice House, which looks like a translucent pyramid. The pyramid would be built of Martian ice and serve as a radiation shield, protecting the lander habitat and gardens inside it, team members said.
The second prize of $15,000 went to Team Gamma for their vision of habitats supported by lengthy buttresses.
Team LavaHive won the third place, but they got no money.
“The creativity and depth of the designs we’ve seen have impressed us,” said Centennial Challenges Program Manager Monsi Roman. “These teams were not only imaginative and artistic with their entries, but they also really took into account the life-dependent functionality our future space explorers will need in an off-Earth habitat.”
Teams were judged on many factors, including architectural concept, design approach, habitability, innovation, functionality, Mars site selection and 3-D print constructability. The design competition is the first milestone of the 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge, which seeks to foster the development of new technologies necessary to additively manufacture a habitat using local indigenous materials with, or without, recyclable materials, in space and on Earth.
NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The program is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Recently NASA presented a new website, where you can watch daily Earth turnaround.
