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LEGO : Bricks Created with Meteorite Dust
Isabella V1 July 2024
LUNAR LEGO BRICKS : REVOLUTION FOR SPACE BUILDING WITH METEORITE DUST.
LEGO, the renowned Danish manufacturer of bricks, has entered into an unusual collaboration with the European Space Agency ( ESA), resulting in one of the most extraordinary projects in its history : the creation of bricks made from meteorite dust.
These special bricks, designed to demonstrate the possibility of building structures using lunar materials, are on display at select LEGO stores, including the prestigious 5th Avenue location in Manhattan, until Sept. 20.
The initiative is aimed at exploring new frontiers for building future lunar bases, seeking to reduce the need to transport materials from Earth to the Moon, a notoriously onerous and complicated task.
These bricks are made of a substance called " Lunar Regolite," similar to that found on the Moon’s surface, which is rich in minerals and rocks.
According to LEGO, mankind has always used earth and sand to build, now with lunar regolith, available in abundance on the Moon, the same could be done in space.
ESA has produced a replacement for regolith by pulverizing an ancient meteorite and turning the resulting powder into a compound suitable for 3D printing LEGO pieces. These bricks, while maintaining classic compatibility with the LEGO system, are only available in the "space gray" shade.
This experiment is not just a curiosity, but represents an important step in the understanding and future use of lunar materials for construction in space exploration.
NASA, together with the Italian Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space Corporation, plans to build the first permanent base on the Moon by 2030. Current proposals for lunar habitats range from mobile home-like structures to inflatable villages.
In sum, the initiative of LEGO bricks made from meteorite dust is an innovation that could pave the way for new ways of building in space, bringing the idea of lunar bases ever closer to reality.