First Lunar Roads

PLANS FOR A FUTURE LUNAR MINING base and the 2025 Artemis III landing on the moon are about to launch a new era of human presence on the moon. To develop the necessary technologies, NASA is investing in engineering innovations that could make structures like lunar roads a possibility. Last year, the space agency awarded Austin-based 3D-printing company Icon a $57.2 million contract to build them. To figure out how these moon roads could become reality, and what challenges we still need to overcome, we spoke to experts about state-of-the-art technology in development.

Regolith

Moon’s top layer regolith- a loose top layer of dust, soil and broken rock are easily blow away and hence poses inhaling hazards. Regolith is ultrafine, abrasive and clingy. When Apollo astronauts walked around they brought back clingy, abrasive fine dust into rover. Similar to jagged little razor blades it got into every joint and rubber gasket. 

Current Research

Mascrete

The concept involves using sulphur mixed with sand to produce a concrete like product. Sulphur has been used in road construction for decades in earth and is strong and resistant to wear which is ideal for building on Mars. 

A team at University of Canterbury has found out that magnesium oxide and silica can be extracted from the basaltic rock and then recombined to make a binder with properties similar to concrete. This is part of a broader effort to identify materials and techniques that could be used to build habitats on Mars.

Starcrete

University of Manchester researcher developed the mix. It consists of simulated extra-terrestrial dust, potato starch and salt. Strength being twice that of ordinary concrete it is perfectly suited for construction works in extraterrestrial environments. Tests showed the compressive strength of 72 MPa which is more than 32MPa found in ordinary concrete. When moon dust was the value shot up even higher to 91MPa. Team research show that a sack of dehydrated potatoes (crisps) contain starch to produce half tonne of starcrete equivalent to 213 brick’ worth of material.

For comparison, a 3-bedroom house takes roughly 7,500 bricks to build. 

Laser

European space agency’s PAVER project aims to create paved surfaces on the moon, such as roads and landing pads. On the moon a Fresnel lens would concentrate sunlight and direct lasers to melt regolith. The PAVER team used a 12 kilowatt cabon dioxide laser to melt simulated moondust into a glassy solid surface, as a way of constructing paver surface. The hardened molten regolith is strong enough to withstand the weight of rovers and other spacecraft. This could all be made in moon’s surface. This is supposed to play a major visionary role in the first phase of lunar infrastructure and base development and subsequently contribute to all phases of lunar exploration and beyond.