3D printing construction company ICON has won a $57.2 million contract from NASA to develop 3D printers to build infrastructure on the lunar surface, such as landing sites, roads and homes. The printer will use lunar-native materials such as moondust and rocks. Shipping raw materials from Earth to the moon is very expensive, and the cost would be astronomical, so building something like a base on the moon needs to take advantage of the materials that exist on the moon as much as possible. The lunar printer developed by ICON is called Olympus, which looks like a giant mechanical spider carrying a crane. It will be sent to the moon by a commercial lander, and it will drive to the destination to start construction.
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