Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a
Speaker 1: gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
Speaker 1: unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
Speaker 1: of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
Speaker 1: slumber under the night sky.
Speaker 2: Imagine, imagine for just a second that you've just landed
Speaker 2: the ultimate remote construction job. Oh boy, right, you have
Speaker 2: been hired to build a house, and not just a shack.
Speaker 2: We're talking a highly advanced, incredibly stardy, literally life saving shelter.
Speaker 2: But there is a massive, seemingly impossible catch to this gig.
Speaker 2: The nearest hardware store, the absolute closest place you can
Speaker 2: go to grab a two by four or a bag
Speaker 2: of cement, or even just a handful of nails, is
Speaker 2: exactly two hundred and thirty eight thousand miles.
Speaker 3: Away, which is a rather long commute.
Speaker 2: A terrible commute. You're standing there in this completely barren, airless,
Speaker 2: absolutely silent landscape. You are surrounded by nothing but gray
Speaker 2: dust and jagged rocks, and your boss basically taps you
Speaker 2: on the shoulder and says, all right, start building. Oh
Speaker 2: and by the way, if these walls aren't perfectly sealed
Speaker 2: and structurally sound by the time the sun goes down,
Speaker 2: you won't survive the night.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a stress stream, honestly, but that is
Speaker 3: the exact kind of mind bending reality that aerospace engineers
Speaker 3: are grappling with right now.
Speaker 2: Exactly we are looking at the literal foundation of humanity's
Speaker 2: future in space. Today, we're taking a deep dive into
Speaker 2: some truly groundbreaking research coming out of the Ohio State University.
Speaker 3: Yeah, led by researchers Sigis and Sarah.
Speaker 2: Wolf Right and featured on physicist dot org. Originating from
Speaker 2: Acta Astronautica. The mission for our deep dive today is
Speaker 2: to explore exactly how scientists are figuring out how to
Speaker 2: take that barren, gray moon dirt and turn it into
Speaker 2: highly durable structures using incredibly advance as laser three D printing,
Speaker 2: and not.
Speaker 3: Just the printing itself, which is complex enough, but the
Speaker 3: hidden variables no one thinks about.
Speaker 2: Right, We're going to break down how this technology actually works.
Speaker 2: We'll look at why the specific ground you choose to
Speaker 2: print on turns out to be the ultimate secret to success,
Speaker 2: and we'll explore how mastering the art of construction in
Speaker 2: the harsh, unforgiving vacuum of space might just be the
Speaker 2: exact key we need to save our own precious resources
Speaker 2: right here on Earth.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's unpack this, because the sheer scale of the
Speaker 3: problem these researchers trying to solve is just it's staggering.
Speaker 3: It requires a complete fundamental shift in how we even
Speaker 3: conceptualize the act of building. Think about it. When you
Speaker 3: construct something on Earth, you take your entire environment for granted.
Speaker 2: What do you mean like taking gravity for granted?
Speaker 3: Gravity absolutely, but also the atmosphere. You assume there is
Speaker 3: air to help regulate the temperature of your tools, your materials.
Speaker 3: You assume your building materials like steel or lumber, are
Speaker 3: relatively uniform and predictable.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The Ohio State team is tackling scenario where absolutely none
Speaker 3: of those earthly assumptions apply, none of them. They are
Speaker 3: trying to develop a fabrication process they can take the natural,
Speaker 3: incredibly harsh environment of the Moon and use it to
Speaker 3: manufacture small heat resistant.
Speaker 2: Objects, which is the crucial first step toward building sturdy,
Speaker 2: non toxic habitats and tools for future astronauts exactly. But
Speaker 2: to even begin that kind of research, I mean, you
Speaker 2: need the raw material. You need dirt, and you can't
Speaker 2: just requisition a dump truck full of actual Apollo moon
Speaker 2: dirt to run hundreds of experimental three D printing trials
Speaker 2: in an Ohio lab.
Speaker 3: Definitely not. No. Real lunar regolith is one of the rarest,
Speaker 3: most highly protected and precious materials on our planet. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the Apollo emissions only brought back a tiny fraction and
Speaker 3: it's locked away in volts for highly specialized analysis. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not for industrial stress testing.
Speaker 2: So they use a stand in.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The researchers utilize something called lunar regolith simulant, which is
Speaker 2: essentially fake lunar soil. It's a synthetic version one of
Speaker 2: the fine dusty material that covers the Moon. And what
Speaker 2: really blew my mind was learning how incredibly specific this
Speaker 2: fake dirt is. They use a simulant called LHS one.
Speaker 3: Yes, LHS one, The LAHS stands for Lunar Highland Simulant.
Speaker 2: Right, this isn't just you know, generic gray sand they
Speaker 2: picked up at a landscaping supply store far from it
Speaker 2: LHS one is meticulously designed to replicate the specific soil
Speaker 2: found in the Lunar Highlands, and the Highlands are described
Speaker 2: as this heavily cratered area rife with dark colored basaltic rock.
Speaker 2: But I think we really need to visualize this before
Speaker 2: we get into the lasers and the printing. What are
Speaker 2: we actually talking about when we say heavily cratered area
Speaker 2: rife with dark colored basaltic rock.
Speaker 3: Well, what's fascinating here is how specific and challenging that
Speaker 3: particular geological profile is for a manufacturing process. When you
Speaker 3: look up at the moon for your backyard, you see
Speaker 3: lighter areas in darker areas. The Lunar Highlands are those lighter,
Speaker 3: heavily elevated, incredibly ancient regions, And the fact that they're
Speaker 3: heavily cratered is not just a passing geographic detail. It
Speaker 3: is the entire higher context for why this dirt behaves
Speaker 3: the way it does.
Speaker 2: Because craters mean impacts.
Speaker 3: Exactly relentless catastrophic bombardment by meteorites and micrometeorites for billions
Speaker 3: of years. Every single impact crushes, shatters and pulverizes the bedrock,
Speaker 3: and that bedrock contains a massive amount of dark colored
Speaker 3: basaltic rock.
Speaker 2: The salt that's volcanic rock, right like you'd see in
Speaker 2: Hawaii or Iceland.
Speaker 3: Precisely. It's an igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling
Speaker 3: of lava. So you have this volcanic, mineral rich rock
Speaker 3: that has been smashed into a fine powder over eons.
Speaker 3: But here is the critical difference between dirt on Earth
Speaker 3: and dirt on the Moon. On Earth, when rocks get
Speaker 3: crushed into sand, what happens.
Speaker 2: Wind and water roll the grains around. They get smooth
Speaker 2: like sea glass or the soft sand on a beach exactly.
Speaker 3: But on the Moon there is no wind, there is
Speaker 3: no water, there is no atmospheric friction, none. So this dirt,
Speaker 3: this regolith is composed of incredibly sharp, jagged, microscopic shards
Speaker 3: of glass and volcanic rock. It is incredibly abrasive, it
Speaker 3: holds a powerful static charge, and it is highly chemically reactive.
Speaker 2: That paints such a wild picture. It's like microscopic, statically
Speaker 2: charged razor blades.
Speaker 3: That's a very accurate way to put it. And the
Speaker 3: LHS one simulant is engineered to mimic that exact brutal composition.
Speaker 3: The researchers are trying to figure out how to feed
Speaker 3: the equivalent of statically charged volcanic glass shards into a
Speaker 3: delicate manufacturing machine.
Speaker 2: It is the furthest thing from the smooth, uniform spools
Speaker 2: of plastic filament that you feed into a normal desktop
Speaker 2: three D printer. Oh, completely, it really makes you appreciate
Speaker 2: the challenge of relying on a simulant. I mean, LHS
Speaker 2: one is obviously a brilliant scientific achievement in its own right,
Speaker 2: just to be able to recreate that highland composition in
Speaker 2: a lab, but it also opens up this whole avenue
Speaker 2: of speculation about the leap from the lab to the
Speaker 2: actual lunar surface.
Speaker 3: Adaman.
Speaker 2: Well, the researchers are using this fake soil to practice,
Speaker 2: but how perfectly can we really emulate billions of years
Speaker 2: of cosmicis The actual dirt on the Moon hasn't just
Speaker 2: been crushed, it has been baked by unshielded solar radiation.
Speaker 2: It's been bombarded by solar wind and subjected to massive
Speaker 2: temperature swings every single lunar day and night for millennia.
Speaker 3: That is a very valid concern. It's a huge.
Speaker 2: Variable, right, Well, LIHS one is the best stand and
Speaker 2: we have. It makes you wonder what microscopic chemical quirks
Speaker 2: the actual historical moondust might possess that a lab made
Speaker 2: simulant might miss. It's like practicing a recipe with store
Speaker 2: bought tomatoes when you know the final meal has to
Speaker 2: be cooked with tomatoes grown in a highly specific, mineral
Speaker 2: rich volcanic caled era. Yeah, it's close, but the environment
Speaker 2: leaves a fingerprint.
Speaker 3: That is a brilliant way to frame the limitation, and
Speaker 3: it is a limitation the researchers are entirely aware of.
Speaker 3: You can synthesize the mineral composition of basaltic rock, you
Speaker 3: can crush it to the correct jagged geometry, but you
Speaker 3: cannot easily synthesize four billion years of continuous radiation exposure
Speaker 3: in an airless void.
Speaker 2: So what happens if the real dust reacts differently.
Speaker 3: Well, the real regolith might have microscopic iron nanoparticles embedded
Speaker 3: within the glass yards, literally vaporized iron from micrometeorite impacts
Speaker 3: that cooled instantly. Wow, those nanoparticles could completely alter how
Speaker 3: the dust interacts with electromagnet fields or the extreme heat
Speaker 3: of a laser. But You have to remember the LHS
Speaker 3: one simulant is the absolute baseline.
Speaker 2: The baseline, meaning if we can't do it with the
Speaker 2: fake stuff, we're doomed with the real stuff.
Speaker 3: Precisely, if you cannot make the manufacturing process work with
Speaker 3: the perfect, uncontaminated, chemically identical lab equivalent, you have zero
Speaker 3: hope of making it work with the unpredictable, radiation soaked
Speaker 3: reality of the lunar Highlands. Shwe Wolf and the Ohio
Speaker 3: State team had to prove the fundamental physics of the concept. First.
Speaker 3: They had to prove that this chaotic powder could be
Speaker 3: transformed into a highly durable structure.
Speaker 2: And they can't just mix it with water to make
Speaker 2: lunar concrete.
Speaker 3: No, because liquid water is arguably the most precious resource
Speaker 3: in space, you aren't going to waitted on mixing cemit.
Speaker 3: You need a completely different method.
Speaker 2: Which brings us to the technology they actually used. And
Speaker 2: this sounds like it was pulled straight from a sci
Speaker 2: fi novel. It's called laser directed energy deposition additive manufacturing.
Speaker 3: It is quite a mouthful of a technical term.
Speaker 2: It really is. I'm going to stumble over.
Speaker 3: It, laser directed energy deposition, right.
Speaker 2: But the underlying concept is just incredible. The researchers are
Speaker 2: using a special, highly concentrated laser to literally melt this fine,
Speaker 2: dusty synthetic material into layers, and then they fuse it
Speaker 2: with a base surface. And they aren't just melting the
Speaker 2: dirt on its own. The process involves precisely combining different
Speaker 2: feedstocks like metal and ceramics during the printing process.
Speaker 3: To manufacture small heat resistant objects.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, I want to try to visualize this for you.
Speaker 2: Think about a hot glue gun that you might use
Speaker 2: for a crafting project. You feed a solid stick of
Speaker 2: glue into the back, a heating element melts it, and
Speaker 2: you squeeze out a precise line of liquid glue that
Speaker 2: instantly cools and hardens into whatever shape your draw.
Speaker 3: It's a good foundational analogy.
Speaker 2: Now scale that up to an unimaginable extreme. Instead of
Speaker 2: a plastic glue stick, the material being fed in is
Speaker 2: crushed alien rock mixed with metals and ceramics. Instead of
Speaker 2: a tiny electrical heating element, the heat source is a concentrated,
Speaker 2: high powered laser beam. And instead of crafting a diorama
Speaker 2: for a school project, the ultimate goal is building massive, sturdy,
Speaker 2: non toxic habitats that will keep human beings alive in
Speaker 2: a lethal environment.
Speaker 3: But the hot glue gun analogy only takes this so
Speaker 3: far because melting rock is fundamentally physically different than melting plastic.
Speaker 2: Right, I assume basaltic rock doesn't just cheerfully melt and flow.
Speaker 3: Like wax, not at all. The physics of laser directed
Speaker 3: energy deposition, especially when applied to a geological material like
Speaker 3: LHS one, are incredibly volatile. When you use a hot
Speaker 3: glue gun, you are dealing with a polymer specifically designed
Speaker 3: by chemical engineers to melt at a low uniform temperature
Speaker 3: and cool smoothly. Basaltic rock and ceramic feat stocks are
Speaker 3: not designed by no to be cooperative.
Speaker 2: So what does the laser actually have to do to.
Speaker 3: Melt these materials. The special laser has to generate immense
Speaker 3: concentrated thermal energy. We're talking about thousands of degrees focused
Speaker 3: onto an area that might be just fractions of a
Speaker 3: millimeter wide. You are instantaneously transforming a solid crystalline rock
Speaker 3: dust into a superheated glowing pool of molten magma.
Speaker 2: Wow, tiny localized magma pool exactly, and as the laser
Speaker 2: moves along its program path to draw the shape.
Speaker 3: That microscopic pool of magma is left behind, and it
Speaker 3: immediately begins to cool and solidify back into a solid
Speaker 3: rock glass matrix. And this is where we run into
Speaker 3: a massive engineering hurdle. It's a concept known as thermal
Speaker 3: shock resistance.
Speaker 2: Okay, hold on, thermal shock resistance. Break that down for me.
Speaker 2: Explain it to me, like I'm five.
Speaker 3: Imagine taking a thick glass baking dish straight out of
Speaker 3: a four hundred degree oven and immediately dropping it into
Speaker 3: a sink full of ice water. What happens?
Speaker 2: It shatters violently. I've actually done that and it's.
Speaker 3: Terrifying, right, And it shatters because of thermal shock. When
Speaker 3: a material is heated to a highly energetic state like
Speaker 3: a liquid, and then rapidly cools down to a solid state,
Speaker 3: the outer layer is exposed to the cooler environment, cool
Speaker 3: down and shrink much faster than the inner layers, which
Speaker 3: are still hot and expanded.
Speaker 2: So the outside is trying and contract, but the inside
Speaker 2: is still pushing out.
Speaker 3: Yes, this creates massive internal stress. The material is literally
Speaker 3: pulling itself apart from the inside. If the material does
Speaker 3: not have high thermal shock resistance, that internal stress will
Speaker 3: cause the newly printed layer to instantly crack, shatter, or warp.
Speaker 2: Which is a huge problem. You can't build a sturdy
Speaker 2: lunar habitat if your foundational bricks are shattering from the
Speaker 2: inside out just seconds after you print them.
Speaker 3: Exactly. If the structural integrity is compromised at the microscotic
Speaker 3: level during the cooling phase, the entire macro structure is useless.
Speaker 2: Here's where it gets really interesting because that exact problem,
Speaker 2: the internal stress, the cracking, the failure to create a
Speaker 2: durable structure, leads to directly to the primary and frankly
Speaker 2: surprising finding of this entire research project. Sisushu, the lead
Speaker 2: author from Ohio State, discovered that the final material is
Speaker 2: incredibly sensitive to its environment. But the breakthrough wasn't about
Speaker 2: tweaking the laser power or changing the dust mixture. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the real plot twist was about the ground they.
Speaker 3: Were building on this substrate dilemma.
Speaker 2: Yes, the study revealed that the overall quality of the
Speaker 2: material depends greatly on the surface onto which the soil
Speaker 2: is printed. It's not just the ink, it's the paper
Speaker 2: you're printing on. The researchers tried to print this molten
Speaker 2: lhs IE mixture onto stainless steel.
Speaker 3: Surfaces, and how did that go?
Speaker 2: It was a disaster, highly challenging. The researchers called it.
Speaker 2: It likely warped, failed to stick, or just fractured entirely.
Speaker 2: So then they tried to print it onto glass surfaces,
Speaker 2: again highly challenging, a failure. But then they tried a
Speaker 2: completely different base. They printed the superheated molten lunar simulant
Speaker 2: onto a circle made of a luminous silicate ceramic ah.
Speaker 3: And suddenly it adhered beautifully. It worked. The dirt and
Speaker 3: the ceramic played nicely together. The entire success of turning
Speaker 3: moon dirt into a durable structure relied entirely on the
Speaker 3: specific material of the foundation they were printing on. But wait,
Speaker 3: hold on, why does ceramic work when heavy duty stainless
Speaker 3: steel fails. Steel feels like it should be the strongest,
Speaker 3: most stable thing you could build on.
Speaker 2: This is perhaps the most crucial scientific insight of the
Speaker 2: entire deep dive, because it moves us from abstract three
Speaker 2: D printing concepts into hard atomic chemistry. Why did the
Speaker 2: stainless steel fail? It comes back to that intense heat
Speaker 2: and the rapid cooling we were just discussing. It involves
Speaker 2: something called thermal expansion coefficients.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're going to have to translate that one forward
Speaker 3: to two thermal expansion coefficient.
Speaker 2: It is simply a measurement of how much a specific
Speaker 2: material expands when it gets hot and how much it
Speaker 2: shrinks when it gets cold. Every material has a different coefficient.
Speaker 2: Steel expands and contracts at a very very different rate
Speaker 2: than basaltic rock. Ah.
Speaker 3: Okay, I see where this is going. So imagine you
Speaker 3: deposit a pool of superheated molten rock onto a room
Speaker 3: temperature stainless steel plate. The heat transfers into the steel. Now,
Speaker 3: as the molten dirt starts to cool down and tries
Speaker 3: to shrink, the steel beneath it is also reacting to
Speaker 3: the heat, expanding or contracting at its own, unique, completely
Speaker 3: different speed.
Speaker 2: It's like two people tied together trying to run in
Speaker 2: opposite directions.
Speaker 3: Precisely, this creates an immense sheer force right at the
Speaker 3: boundary layer where the two materials touch. The printed layer
Speaker 3: of rock essentially rips itself off the steel surface, or
Speaker 3: the stress causes the rock to turn brittle and shatter
Speaker 3: the glass surface. Failed for similar reasons. It couldn't handle
Speaker 3: the thermal disparity.
Speaker 2: All right, So why is the illuminousilicate ceramic the hero
Speaker 2: of the story. What is it doing differently?
Speaker 3: It's entirely different chemistry. Luminosilicate is a compound made of aluminium, silicon,
Speaker 3: and oxygen. Now look at our lunar Highland simulant. The
Speaker 3: dark colored basaltic rock is also heavily composed of silicates.
Speaker 3: They share a fundamental chemical family.
Speaker 2: So they recognize each other chemically speaking.
Speaker 3: In a way. Yes, When the laser melts the simulant
Speaker 3: onto the ceramic base, they aren't just two distinct layers
Speaker 3: sitting loosely on top of one another like a sticker
Speaker 3: on a metal bumper. The heat causes the two compounds
Speaker 3: to interact and they actually form crystals together.
Speaker 2: Wait, they grow crystals.
Speaker 3: Yes, they undergo a chemical reaction at the boundary layer.
Speaker 3: The molten rock and the solid ceramic interlock at the
Speaker 3: atomic level, growing shared crystal structures across the divide.
Speaker 2: That is incredible.
Speaker 3: It is this deep chemical handshake is what enhances the
Speaker 3: thermal stability and the chanical strength that the study highlights.
Speaker 3: The base surface isn't just a passive table you're building on.
Speaker 3: It becomes an active, integrated partner in the structural integrity
Speaker 3: of the final object.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely wild. So it is essentially welding with rock,
Speaker 2: but instead of melting two pieces of metal together so
Speaker 2: they pool, you are coaxing the molten dirt and the
Speaker 2: ceramic foundation to grow a shared microscoptic roots set of crystals.
Speaker 3: That is a very elegant way to describe it, a
Speaker 3: microscopic root system.
Speaker 2: It makes perfect sense why that would drastically increase the
Speaker 2: mechanical strength and the thermal stability. If they are chemically
Speaker 2: locked together with these crystalline roots, they can handle the
Speaker 2: immense stress of cooling down without ripping apart. But if
Speaker 2: we extrapolate that finding out of the laboratory and try
Speaker 2: to apply it to an actual mission, the implications for
Speaker 2: lunar based design are just massive.
Speaker 3: They alter the entire architectural paradigm.
Speaker 2: Right because if this study proves that you absolutely cannot
Speaker 2: reliably three D print sturdy structures directly onto steel plates,
Speaker 2: and you certainly can't put them onto glass, and you
Speaker 2: presumably can't print them directly onto the loose, chaotic, unmelted
Speaker 2: dust of the Moon's surface without a proper base. How
Speaker 2: does that fundamentally change the architectural plans for a lunar settlement.
Speaker 3: It suggests that the very first step of building a
Speaker 3: moon base isn't turning on the three D printers to
Speaker 3: make walls exactly.
Speaker 2: The first step has to be establishing an app absolutely
Speaker 2: massive foundation pad of aluminous silicate ceramic. You would have
Speaker 2: to essentially pave the lunar surface with these specific chemically
Speaker 2: compatible ceramic tiles before the massive laser deposition machines could
Speaker 2: even begin their work of building the habitats.
Speaker 3: Which adds an entirely new layer of logistical complexity to
Speaker 3: the engineering blueprints. You weren't just bringing high tech printers
Speaker 3: on a rocket. You are bringing or you have to
Speaker 3: figure out how to manufacture incredibly specific ceramic subflooring.
Speaker 2: It's like realizing you can't build your dream house until
Speaker 2: you've invented and poured a completely new type of concrete slab.
Speaker 3: You've identified the exact cascading logistical challenge that makes offer
Speaker 3: of construction so incredibly daunting. Every solution immediately requires a
Speaker 3: prerequisite solution. You want to build a wall out of
Speaker 3: dirt to save weight on the rocket. Great idea, but
Speaker 3: now you need a heavy ceramic foundation so the wall
Speaker 3: doesn't shatter due to thermal shocks. It never ends, it
Speaker 3: doesn't and this substrate dilemma. The realization that the printing
Speaker 3: surface is critically important is really just one single variable
Speaker 3: in a massive chaotic equation. As senior author Sarah Wolf
Speaker 3: points out, there are a multitude of other environmental factors
Speaker 3: that heavily impact the stability of the final structure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the study found that it wasn't just the ground.
Speaker 2: The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, the strength of
Speaker 2: the laser, and the speed of the printing process all
Speaker 2: drastically alter the outcome.
Speaker 3: And this brings us to a harsh reality check about
Speaker 3: laboratory research versus field application. Wolf notes that conditions in
Speaker 3: space are really hard to emulate in a simulant. She
Speaker 3: acknowledges that while a highly specific combination of laser strength,
Speaker 3: print speed, and a nice ceramic substrate might work perfectly
Speaker 3: in a controlled Ohio state lab, a resource scarce environment
Speaker 3: is a completely different beast.
Speaker 2: It's one thing to make a soufle in a commercial kitchen,
Speaker 2: it's another to make it in a hurricane.
Speaker 3: Precisely, the technologies created for this kind of work must
Speaker 3: be engineered to survive what the researchers classify as extreme vacuum, dust,
Speaker 3: and thermal environmental conditions.
Speaker 2: Wolf mention extreme vacuum and thermal conditions, and I really
Speaker 2: want to paint a picture of what those extreme conditions
Speaker 2: actually mean, because it is so easy to read the
Speaker 2: words extreme vacuum on a page and not fully grasp
Speaker 2: the sheer active hostility of that environment. Let's contrast the
Speaker 2: two realities. In the Ohio State laboratory, the researchers have
Speaker 2: total godlike control. The room is climate controlled to a
Speaker 2: comfortable seventy degrees. The air pressure is a standard comfortable
Speaker 2: one atmosphere. The electrical grid provides a perfectly stable, uninterrupted
Speaker 2: flow of power to the laser and the LHS one
Speaker 2: simulant is kept pure and dry and sealed clean containers.
Speaker 3: A pristine sanctuary exactly.
Speaker 2: Now, let's teleport that incredibly sensitive, finely tuned laser deposition
Speaker 2: machine to the lunar Highlands. What actually happens. First, there
Speaker 2: is no air, extreme.
Speaker 3: Vacuum, which is a nightmare for machinery.
Speaker 2: Why space is cold wouldn't a vacuum help cool the
Speaker 2: hot machinery down.
Speaker 3: That's a very common misconception on Earth. An engine or
Speaker 3: a laser gets hot, the air around it absorbs that
Speaker 3: heat and rises, pulling cooler air in to replace it.
Speaker 3: That's called convection. In a vacuum, there is no air
Speaker 3: to carry the heat away. Oh, the only way for
Speaker 3: a machine to shed heat is through thermal radiation, which
Speaker 3: is much much slower. A machine running a superheated laser
Speaker 3: in a vacuum will quickly overheat and melt its own
Speaker 3: internal components if it isn't perfectly engineered with massive radiators.
Speaker 2: Mind blown. Okay, so it can't cool itself down. What
Speaker 2: about the external temperatures?
Speaker 3: The thermal conditions are violent. The Moon doesn't have an
Speaker 3: atmosphere to trap heat or block the sun's rays. If
Speaker 3: your three D printer is working in direct sunlight, the
Speaker 3: surface temperature can skyrocket to two hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 2: Hot enough to boil water easily.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But then if a shadow falls over the machine star,
Speaker 3: maybe the shadow of a crater rim or even the
Speaker 3: shadow of the habitat, it's brooding the temperature plummets to
Speaker 3: negative two hundred and eight degrees fahrenheit within moments. Imagine
Speaker 3: the thermal shock to the mechanical joints of the robotic arms,
Speaker 3: the delicate glass lenses focusing the laser, and the highly
Speaker 3: sensitive electronics as a swing between boiling heat and deep freeze,
Speaker 3: sometimes multiple times a day, depending on the orbit and location.
Speaker 2: And then on top of all that, you have the dust.
Speaker 2: As we discussed earlier, it is abrasive, it is statically charged,
Speaker 2: and it is microscopic. It will cling to absolutely everything.
Speaker 2: Think about how a single grain of sand can ruin
Speaker 2: your phone screen at the beach. Now imagine statically charged
Speaker 2: glass shards grinding their way into the gears of the
Speaker 2: robotic arms, coating the laser optics, and contaminating the molten
Speaker 2: pool of regolith. The laboratory is a sanctuary. The moon
Speaker 2: is a chaotic, brutal war zone. For machinery.
Speaker 3: This raises an important question, and it's the exact question
Speaker 3: that Sarah Wolf's addresses when she talks about the need
Speaker 3: to maximize the flexibility of a machine for different scenarios.
Speaker 3: In a resource scarce environment where you absolutely cannot simply
Speaker 3: call a repair technician or order or replacement part on
Speaker 3: next state delivery. Machine flexibility is not a luxury. It
Speaker 3: is the absolute baseline requirement for survival.
Speaker 2: What does machine flexibility look like in this context?
Speaker 3: If the three D printer is rigidly programmed to only
Speaker 3: work with a precise laser strength, a precise printing speed,
Speaker 3: and an exact atmosphere composition, it will fail the moment
Speaker 3: the lunar environment deviates from those perfect lab conditions, and
Speaker 3: on the Moon it will deviate constantly.
Speaker 2: So it needs to be smart exactly.
Speaker 3: The machine needs to be intelligent enough, or at least
Speaker 3: adjustable enough, to sense its environment and adapt in real time.
Speaker 3: If a sudden temperature drop, say that shadow we talked about,
Speaker 3: causes the molten regular to cool too quickly and risk
Speaker 3: thermal shock, the machine needs the flexibility to instantly recognize
Speaker 3: that and increase the laser strength or slow down the
Speaker 3: printing speed to maintain the optimal thermal dynamics.
Speaker 2: It's like driving a car. You don't just hold the
Speaker 2: gas pedal at one exact angle the whole trip. You
Speaker 2: adjust for hills, weather, and traffic.
Speaker 3: Perfect analogy. If the local patch of regalists the rover
Speaker 3: scoops up has a slightly higher concentration of iron than
Speaker 3: it expected, which changes a melting point. The system must
Speaker 3: adapt on the fly. Wolfe's emphasis on flexibility is a
Speaker 3: stark acknowledgment that in space, rigidity equals failure. The technology
Speaker 3: cannot just be a blunt instrument repeating a single programmed motion.
Speaker 3: It has to be a dynamic, highly responsive system capable
Speaker 3: of surviving and operating through wildly fluctuating variables.
Speaker 2: And understanding why this incredible level of technological resilience is
Speaker 2: necessary requires us to zoom out a bit. We need
Speaker 2: to look at the broader, real world timeline of humanity's
Speaker 2: returned to the Moon and the economic realities driving these innovations.
Speaker 2: Because this isn't just an abstract academic exercise happening in
Speaker 2: a vacuum pun entirely intended, thank you. This research is
Speaker 2: directly tied to the immediate future of space exploration. The
Speaker 2: researchers explicitly connect this technology to the NASA Artemis missions,
Speaker 2: and the stated goal of Artemis is establishing a long
Speaker 2: term human presence on the Moon by the end of
Speaker 2: the decade. We aren't talking about some distant star trek
Speaker 2: fifty years from now scenario. We are talking about a
Speaker 2: timeline that is happening.
Speaker 3: Right now, and the entire strategic foundation for achieving that
Speaker 3: long term presence revolves around an overarching concept that is
Speaker 3: essential to this discussion. In situ resource utilization or ISRU ISRU.
Speaker 2: That's a term I feel like we are going to
Speaker 2: be hearing a lot more of as we push further
Speaker 2: into space.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, ISRU is simply put, the harnessing of local natural
Speaker 3: resources at mission destinations. Instead of bringing everything with you,
Speaker 3: you use what is already there. The logistical reasoning for
Speaker 3: why ISRU is so vital is straightforward. Additive manufacturing systems
Speaker 3: like this laser three D printer rapidly reduce the need
Speaker 3: to transport large quantities of materials and heavy equipment from Earth.
Speaker 3: It theoretically enables astronauts to create an array of structures, tools,
Speaker 3: and habitats on demand.
Speaker 2: Why is that such a game changer? Haven't we always
Speaker 2: brought our stuff with us?
Speaker 3: We have, and that is exactly the problem. The paradigm
Speaker 3: shift represented by insitu resource utilization cannot be overstated. For
Speaker 3: the entire history of human spaceflight, we have operated on
Speaker 3: what we can call the camping trip model.
Speaker 2: The camping trip model, Okay, break that down.
Speaker 3: If you go camping in the deep wilderness, you have
Speaker 3: to pack all your food, all your water, your tent,
Speaker 3: your tools, your batteries, and your fuel. Everything you need
Speaker 3: to survive is on your back or in your truck.
Speaker 3: If your tent pull snaps in a windstorm and you
Speaker 3: didn't bring a spare you're out of luck, your trip
Speaker 3: is over, or you freeze in space. That model is
Speaker 3: astronomically expensive and highly restrictive. Every single gram of mass
Speaker 3: you bring, every spare wrench, every extra structural beam requires
Speaker 3: a massive amount of highly explosive rocket fuel to lift
Speaker 3: it out of Earth's deep gravity.
Speaker 2: Well, so a spare wrench might cost one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in rocket fuel just to get it to orbit easily.
Speaker 3: The Artemis missions are attempting to transition us from the
Speaker 3: camping trip model to the settlement model. When human beings
Speaker 3: historically settled new frontiers on Earth, they didn't bring entire
Speaker 3: prefabricated houses with them on wooden sailing ships. That was impossible.
Speaker 3: Are the tools required to chop down the local trees
Speaker 3: and mine the local stone to build the houses once
Speaker 3: they arrived. Ah Isrus is the space age equivalent of
Speaker 3: that historical necessity. The Ohio State researchers are essentially trying
Speaker 3: to invent the ultimate off world blacksmith, forge, lumber mill,
Speaker 3: and brick kiln combined into one single robotic machine. If
Speaker 3: we can master this, we finally break the umbilical cord
Speaker 3: to Earth. The promise of these technologies allows for, as
Speaker 3: the researchers put it, extended independence. As crews travel into
Speaker 3: deep space, we are moving from a state of total
Speaker 3: terrifying reliance on constant supply chains to a state of
Speaker 3: profound self sufficiency.
Speaker 2: I want to spend some time really exploring the cascading
Speaker 2: benefits of that extended independence, because it fundamentally changes the
Speaker 2: safety profile and the viability of deep space exploration. Let's
Speaker 2: run a scenario. Imagine an astronaut on a newly established
Speaker 2: lunar base. They're out on a survey and a critical
Speaker 2: structural support in their rover snaps due to metal fatigue
Speaker 2: or maybe a micromedia. You're punches a small but dangerous
Speaker 2: hole in an exterior shielding wall of.
Speaker 3: The habitat very realistic scenarios.
Speaker 2: In the old model, the camping trip model like Apollo thirteen.
Speaker 2: What happens? They would have to radio Earth Houston, we
Speaker 2: have a problem. They request a replacement part, They wait
Speaker 2: for engineers on Earth to design it, manufacture it, test it.
Speaker 2: Then they have to wait for a multi million dollar
Speaker 2: supply rocket to be prepped, fueled, and launched, assuming the
Speaker 2: weather in Florida is good, and then they wait days
Speaker 2: for it to transit to the Moon. In a crisis,
Speaker 2: that kind of delay is lethal.
Speaker 3: It's an unacceptable risk for long term habitation.
Speaker 2: But with robust, flexible ISRU technology, that entire convoluted terrestrial
Speaker 2: supply chain is bypassed completely. The astronaut simply shovels some local,
Speaker 2: dark colored basaltic dirt into the hopper of the machine.
Speaker 2: They input the CAD file for the broken rovers strut
Speaker 2: into the computer, and the laser directed energy deposition machine
Speaker 2: fires up, melts the dirt, forms those incredible crystalline bonds
Speaker 2: the ceramic, and prints a perfectly fitted, heat resistant, structurally
Speaker 2: sound replacement right there on the spot in a matter
Speaker 2: of hours, not weeks exactly, if you don't have to
Speaker 2: wait for a supply rocket to bring a specific tool
Speaker 2: or structural patch and you can just print it from
Speaker 2: the dirt under your boots. The psychology of the mission changes,
Speaker 2: the safety margins expand exponentially. You are no longer living
Speaker 2: on borrowed time and strictly ration supplies. You have the
Speaker 2: capacity to dynamically respond to unforeseen emergencies with virtually unlimited
Speaker 2: local raw materials.
Speaker 3: And that capacity for dynamic response is exactly what is
Speaker 3: required if we ever hope to look beyond.
Speaker 2: The Moon towards Mars.
Speaker 3: Precisely, the Moon is, in cosmic terms, our own backyard.
Speaker 3: A supply ship from Earth only takes a few days
Speaker 3: to get there if absolutely necessary, But if we're talking
Speaker 3: about human missions to Mars, a supply ship could take
Speaker 3: six to nine months, and worse, it can only be
Speaker 3: launched during specific planetary alignments that occur every two.
Speaker 2: Years, wow two years.
Speaker 3: If a critical component fails on Mars, calling Earth for
Speaker 3: a replacement is absolutely not an option. You must be
Speaker 3: able to harness the local resources to survive the Moon,
Speaker 3: and specifically, these lunar highlands with their abrasive, challenging regolith
Speaker 3: is the ultimate proving ground for these ISRU technologies. If
Speaker 3: we can figure out how to force a laser to
Speaker 3: print durable ceramics and metals out of the chaos of
Speaker 3: lunar dust while operating in a vacuum with massive thermal swings.
Speaker 3: Then the technology will be robust enough to deploy anywhere
Speaker 3: in the Solar System. The extreme constraints of the lunar
Speaker 3: environment forced the engineering to become impossibly efficient and impossibly resilient.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take a breath, because this all sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: But I know what some people might be thinking, What
Speaker 2: does this all mean for us? For you and me
Speaker 2: sitting comfortably on Earth where we don't have to worry
Speaker 2: about the vacuum of space or the lack of a
Speaker 2: local hardware store.
Speaker 3: It's a fair question. Why should we care about moon
Speaker 3: dirt lasers? Right?
Speaker 2: It is easy to look at a highly technical aerospace
Speaker 2: study about building Moon colonies and think it is just
Speaker 2: science fiction trivia, completely disconnected from our daily lives and
Speaker 2: our daily problems. But the final takeaway of this research
Speaker 2: brings this massive cosmic vision crashing right back down to
Speaker 2: our own planet, and the implications are profound. The researchers
Speaker 2: point out that the innovations required to survive on the
Speaker 2: Moon could directly address some of the most pressing crises
Speaker 2: we face right here at home, and it starts with
Speaker 2: energy exactly. Let's look at the power limitations. Current earth
Speaker 2: bound three D printing systems, like the one used in
Speaker 2: the Ohio State Lab to run these tests, run on
Speaker 2: standard electricity. You plug it into the wall and it
Speaker 2: draws power from the regional grid. But future space designs
Speaker 2: of this system cannot rely on plugging into a wall.
Speaker 2: The researchers suggests that to function on the Moon, these
Speaker 2: massive power hungry systems must be scaled up using solar
Speaker 2: driven or other hybrid power.
Speaker 3: Architectures, because you have to figure out how to generate
Speaker 3: the immense concentrated thermal energy required to melt rock thousands
Speaker 3: of degrees without relying on a massive carbon burning power plant.
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, what we
Speaker 2: are witnessing is a masterclass in how extreme constraint breeds
Speaker 2: revolutionary innovation. Think about it. On Earth, we have historically
Speaker 2: operated with an illusion of infinite resources and infinite energy.
Speaker 2: If we want to build a skyscraper, what do we do.
Speaker 2: We mine iron ore out of the ground, We refine
Speaker 2: it into steel using massive amounts of coal or natural gas.
Speaker 2: We transport that heavy steel thousands of miles using diesel
Speaker 2: burning ships and trucks, and we assemble it using grid
Speaker 2: tide electricity. It is an incredibly energy intensive, wasteful, and
Speaker 2: resource heavy process.
Speaker 3: We do it this way because historically the resources in
Speaker 3: the fuel were cheap and abundant. We didn't have to
Speaker 3: be efficient.
Speaker 2: But the researchers in this study are operating under the
Speaker 2: ultimate constraint zero available resources other than local dirt and sunlight.
Speaker 2: If sijew and Sarah Wolf can successfully design a machine
Speaker 2: that uses highly efficient solar driven or hybrid power architectures
Speaker 2: to manipulate the molecular strung sure of local dirt into
Speaker 2: high strength materials, they haven't just solved the problem of
Speaker 2: lunar construction.
Speaker 3: They've solved earth construction.
Speaker 2: Yes, they have inadvertently created a blueprint for ultra low energy,
Speaker 2: zero emission manufacturing. They are forcing the technology to become
Speaker 2: so efficient out of pure life or death survival necessity
Speaker 2: that it makes our current terrestrial manufacturing methods look archaic
Speaker 2: and gluttonous by comparison.
Speaker 3: And both of the lead researchers emphasize this exact point.
Speaker 3: Cche Chu is quoted saying there's so many applications that
Speaker 3: we're working toward that with new information, the possibilities are endless,
Speaker 3: and Sarah Wolf drives the earthly connection home even harder.
Speaker 3: She says, if we can successfully manufacture things in space
Speaker 3: using very few resources, that means we can also achieve
Speaker 3: better sustainability on Earth.
Speaker 2: Gaining a better sense of how manufacturing might work in
Speaker 2: space could help researchers discover new ways to address critical
Speaker 2: material shortages back home. This is where the concept of
Speaker 2: sustainability gets a massive futuristic upgrade. I want to really
Speaker 2: explore or what sustainability looks like if we apply this
Speaker 2: lunar resource scarcity mindset to our own earthly manufacturing.
Speaker 3: It's changed the definition of waste.
Speaker 2: Exactly right now. When we face a shortage of a
Speaker 2: specific building material on Earth's say there's a huge shortage
Speaker 2: right now this specific type of rough sand used to
Speaker 2: make concrete, the global supply chain panics. We scramble to
Speaker 2: find new pristine environments to mine and exploit. But what
Speaker 2: if we took the isru approach. What if we looked
Speaker 2: at the local, seemingly useless materials all around us, The
Speaker 2: exact way astronauts are forced to look at jagged moondust.
Speaker 3: That is the exact conceptual leap the researchers are inviting
Speaker 3: us to make. True sustainability isn't just about using slightly
Speaker 3: less energy to produce the same traditional materials. It's about
Speaker 3: fundamentally rethinking what constitutes a resource. Give me an example, Well,
Speaker 3: on the Moon, sharp, jagged, microscopic shards of volcanic glass
Speaker 3: are not a nuisance. They are the primary building block
Speaker 3: of civilization. If we bring that technology in that perspective
Speaker 3: back to Earth, we can look at environments and materials
Speaker 3: we currently categorize as waste or unusable. Think about the
Speaker 3: massive slag heaps leftover from industrial mining operations.
Speaker 2: Slag heaps, those are the giant mountains of leftover rock
Speaker 2: after they extract the valuable metals right.
Speaker 3: Correct, mountains of crushed chemically complex rock that we currently
Speaker 3: treat as toxic eye sores. They just sit there leaching
Speaker 3: into the environment. Or think about the incredibly abrasive, unfarmable
Speaker 3: sands found in certain desert regions that are completely unsuitable
Speaker 3: for traditional concrete mixing because the grains are the wrong shape.
Speaker 2: They're too smooth. Usually right or too uniform right.
Speaker 3: They don't interlock well for traditional cement. But if we
Speaker 3: scale up these laser directed energy deposition system systems that
Speaker 3: are powered by hybrid solar architectures and require no grid connection,
Speaker 3: and we program them with the extreme flexibility required for space, ah,
Speaker 3: those massive piles of industrial waste and unusable desert sand
Speaker 3: suddenly become high value feedstocks.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I see it. We could theo whetically deploy
Speaker 2: a flexible, solar powered laser printing machine to a depleted,
Speaker 2: toxic strip mine, and it could just sit there and
Speaker 2: spend years silently melting the waste rock into durable, highly
Speaker 2: engineered structural components like girders or foundation blocks, or even
Speaker 2: entire modular homes, all without drawing a single wat of
Speaker 2: power from the grid or requiring a single truckload of
Speaker 2: new pristine materials to be shipped in.
Speaker 3: The constraints of the Moon force us to learn how
Speaker 3: to build beautifully and efficiently out of absolute garbage.
Speaker 2: That is such a powerful way to frame it. The
Speaker 2: Moon forces us to learn how to build out of
Speaker 2: absolute garbage. It completely redefines the concept of recycling. We
Speaker 2: aren't just talking about melting down plastic water bottles to
Speaker 2: make more plastic water bottles or park benches. We are
Speaker 2: talking about the atomic level restructuring of local geology and
Speaker 2: industrial waste into advanced sustainable architecture.
Speaker 3: It is a stunning vision of the future, driven by
Speaker 3: the absolute necessity of surviving in the most hostile environment imaginable.
Speaker 2: We have covered an incredible amount of ground today, from
Speaker 2: the microscopic jagged edges of fake moon dirt to the
Speaker 2: sweeping multiplanetary goals of the Artemis program. To recap for
Speaker 2: everyone listening, we started by unpacking the nature of the
Speaker 2: raw material that LHS one simulant designed specifically to mimic
Speaker 2: the dark colored basaltic rock of the heavily cratered Lunar Highlands.
Speaker 3: And the razor sharp, statically charged reality of that environment.
Speaker 2: Yes, then we explored the mind bending physics of laser
Speaker 2: directed energy deposition, the process of melting that fake dirt
Speaker 2: and combining it with metals and ceramics to print layered
Speaker 2: heat resistant objects like a terrifyingly hot.
Speaker 3: Glue gun, and the challenge of thermal shock resistance, which
Speaker 3: led us.
Speaker 2: To the massive plot twist regarding the substrate dilemma. The
Speaker 2: fact that you can't just print on stainless steel or
Speaker 2: glass because they expand and contract at different rates, but
Speaker 2: that aluminous silicate ceramic creates a crucial chemical and crystalline
Speaker 2: bond that ensures the whole thing doesn't.
Speaker 3: Shatter the microscopic root system exactly.
Speaker 2: Then we can trasted the pristine Ohio laboratory with the
Speaker 2: chaotic reality of the space environment. We talked about how
Speaker 2: an extreme vacuum means you can't cool the machines down,
Speaker 2: the wild thermal swings from boiling to freezing, the abrace
Speaker 2: of dust, and the absolute necessity of machine flexibility to
Speaker 2: adapt and survive.
Speaker 3: It all a vital step toward in situ resource utilization.
Speaker 2: Right. We connected this technology to the grand vision of ISRU,
Speaker 2: the paradigm shift from the camping trip model to the
Speaker 2: settlement model that will allow artemis astronauts extended independence from
Speaker 2: Earth's fragile supply chains. And finally, we brought it all
Speaker 2: back home to Earth, exploring how mastering the art of
Speaker 2: building with zero resources in space could revolutionize sustainability, power architectures,
Speaker 2: and how we view industrial waste right here in our
Speaker 2: own backyards.
Speaker 3: It is a remarkable progression of thought starting with a
Speaker 3: small pool of molten synthetic rock in an Ohio lab
Speaker 3: and expanding outward to encompass the future of human habitation
Speaker 3: across the Solar System, and then reflecting that knowledge back
Speaker 3: to solve our own t wrestrial resource crises. The work
Speaker 3: of jeu Volf and their colleagues demonstrates that the quest
Speaker 3: to reach the stars is not a diversion of resources
Speaker 3: away from Earth. It is a profound investment in the advanced,
Speaker 3: hyper efficient technologies required to protect and sustain our own
Speaker 3: planet in the long term.
Speaker 2: Absolutely beautifully said, the push outward is what teaches us
Speaker 2: how to survive inward. And as we wrap up this
Speaker 2: deep dive, I want to leave you with one final
Speaker 2: lingering question to mull over on your commute, a thought
Speaker 2: that builds on everything we have discussed today. We have
Speaker 2: talked about how the harsh, barren dirt of the Moon
Speaker 2: can be transformed into the very foundations of human habitats
Speaker 2: using advanced lasers and a deep understanding of chemical bonds.
Speaker 2: If we can master the art of turning a dead
Speaker 2: world's dust into a thrive of colony, what completely unexpected,
Speaker 2: seemingly unusable waste materials sitting right here in our own backyards.
Speaker 2: Perhaps materials you walk or drive past every single day
Speaker 2: and consider nothing but trash or environmental blight, might actually
Speaker 2: hold the latent locked away potential to become the structural
Speaker 2: building blocks of our next great sustainable cities. It makes
Speaker 2: you look at the ground beneath your feet in a
Speaker 2: completely different light. Thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 2: on this deep dive into the future of lunar construction
Speaker 2: and earthly sustainability. Keep questioning, keep looking up, and we
Speaker 2: will see you next time.
Speaker 3: Character U