Colonizing Space for Animals Via 3D Printing

The Nonhuman Autonomous Space Agency, a project of The Working Group on Adaptive Systems of Maryland, thinks we should all take a different view on colonizing space. Because it is such a challenge for humans to achieve that mission, they encourage thinking of a more unique solution — one that would send animals such as manatees and chickens to a space colony, in a 3D printed habitat. Check out the concept behind this whimsical idea in the full article: http://3dprint.com/37264/3d-print-animal-space-habitat/


Below is a look at the proposed 3D printed habitat for space animals. Is this a crazy idea or an idea that may one day work? Will we be 3D printing space-bound homes for animals on earth any time soon? If so, how soon?
http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...ed-habitat.jpg

I don't know if you're thinking of giant Makerbots or what. In the late seventies I attended a conference at Princeton that was about putting space colonies at the Lagrange points. specifically L5. See - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society. Keith Henson and K. Eric Drexler presented a paper titled something like "Vapor Phase Deposition in the Construction of Large Space Structures". The idea was to inflate a large Kevlar cylindrical balloon at one of the Lagrange points between the Earth and the Moon. Then send lunar soil launched by a magnetic rail "mass driver" and caught in a Kevlar bag one mile across. The aluminum in the lunar soil, using solar energy, would be melted it and sprayed it on the balloon to build a large beer can essentially. Then more lunar soil would be put inside to terraform the inside like your picture.The picture above seems to be a smaller version of that. Anyway, thanks for bringing back memories and making me realize that that Vapor Phase Deposition was a form of 3D printing.

The space shuttle really dates this one...

And of course, the core concept of effectively a small city park for animals in space is pretty ludicrous.

The plans for something like this have been thought about by scientists for years. The Princeton conference I mentioned in my other post had top scientists from many different disciplines. I'm talking about rocket scientists that worked on the V2 under hitler and the engineers that built that Space shuttle. If the brains want to test their hardware, I'm all for trying it on Chickens or whatever. Success is success and could lead to getting the human race up there so that "all the eggs are in more than one basket" in case some natural or man made disaster makes life on this planet rough. It could be a lifeboat, in effect for any survivors. The only objection I would have is making the taxpayers foot the bill. The Big Beer can I mentioned above was to cost about 20 billion in 1970's dollars, about what the Alaska pipeline cost, and the technology existed then. That conference was primarily about Manufacturing in Space. The main thrust was a plan to capture solar energy and beam it down to Earth mitigate the energy crisis caused by the oil embargo. The environmentalists would have never let that happen, but the possibilities of manufacturing technologies that can only be carried out in 0g are still worth researching and are being done now on the space lab. I say if some one wants to pay for it, it can't hurt.