3D printing winning ideas for lunar living

ESA asked the public a question: what would you have 3D printed, to make a future lunar base seem like home? The winning idea in the over 18 category came from visual artist Helen Schell, who proposed 3D printing a ‘magic moon garden’, made up of colourful, interchangeable plastic parts that could be arranged over time to mimic the growth of living plants. The under 18 category in ESA’s lunar 3D printing competition was won by Judith de Santiago, a 17-year-old student from Madrid, Spain, who presented a 12-sided plant pot – ideally for a real plant – that incorporates symbols of Earth. Portuguese company BeeVeryCreative - part of the URBAN consortium, working with ESA to investigate 3D printing to establish a Moon settlement - printed a prototype version of the winning designs.