BEIJING: China will look into using 3D printing technology to build buildings on the moon. This comes as Beijing prepares plans for long-term lunar habitation.
China’s first soil samples from the moon brought back to Earth by an unmanned probe during the Chang’e 5 mission in 2020. Chang’e is the name of a famous Chinese moon goddess. China wants to send an astronaut to the moon by 2030. In 2013, China was the first country to land on the moon.
Between now and then, China will start the Chang’e 6, 7, and 8 missions. Chang’e 8 will look for resources on the moon that can be used over and over again so that people can live there for a long time.
China Daily quoted Wu Weiren, a scientist at the China National Space Administration, as saying that the Chang’e 8 probe will study the environment. As well as mineral makeup on the moon’s surface. It will also find out if technologies like 3D printing can be used there.
Wu said, “If we want to stay on the moon for a long time. We need to build stations out of things that come from the moon.”
Chinese media said earlier this month that China plans to use dirt from the moon. It is to start building a base on the moon in five years.
An expert from the Chinese Academy of Engineering says that during the Chang’e 8 mission, which will take place around the year 2028, a robot will be sent to the moon to make “lunar soil bricks.”
In the past few years, especially in the United States, the race to be the first people to walk on the moon has gotten stronger.
