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标题: Four Volunteers Emerge After 378 Days Inside a 3D-Printed Mars Habitat [打印本页]

作者: admin 时间: 2026-11-4 20:15
标题: Four Volunteers Emerge After 378 Days Inside a 3D-Printed Mars Habitat
Nanjixiong introduction: Few examples test real-world printed structures as strongly as NASA's habitat. Four people lived in it for more than a year, twice over. When the second crew emerged on October 31, a NASA astronaut greeted them with “Trick or treat.”

On November 2, 2026, Nanjixiong learned that four volunteers completed 378 days in Mars Dune Alpha at NASA's Johnson Space Center and exited on October 31. Commander Ross Elder, medical officer Ellen Ellis, flight engineer James Spicer, and science officer Matthew Montgomery entered on October 19, 2025. They performed a full range of simulated surface tasks in the 158 m² printed building.

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378 Days in Isolation, Ending on Halloween

Johnson director Vanessa Wyche spoke at the ceremony, joined by astronaut Jack Hathaway. The crew emerged in black flight suits, waving and making victory signs.

Ellis called it “a hell of a year” and described them as volunteers willingly confined as analog astronauts. Montgomery thanked those supporting the mission. Spicer emphasized family: external contact during the year was limited to delayed email, simulating Mars communications.

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They conducted simulated spacewalks through an airlock into a sandbox, grew vegetables, exercised, maintained equipment, ran experiments, and handled resource constraints and communication delays. Two weeks of post-mission assessments and interviews follow, feeding directly into lunar-base design and Mars planning.

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The 158 m² House Was Extruded Layer by Layer from Concrete

Despite assumptions about exotic materials, the habitat is not printed from titanium.

Austin-based ICON used its next-generation Vulcan construction system, a rail-mounted gantry robot moving along the structure. Lavacrete, its proprietary mortar-based concrete, was dyed red from gray to resemble Martian regolith.

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A Magma mixing and handling system outside Johnson's B220 building prepared and pumped the material. The team comprised a print supervisor, printer operator, Magma operator, and quality control.

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The single-story structure is 60 × 28 feet, approximately 18 × 8.5 meters, designed by Denmark's BIG with structural engineering by Fort Structures. Walls vary from five to ten inches, 12.7–25.4 cm. Structure, equipment, and furniture could not exceed 750,000 pounds, approximately 340 tonnes, because the building floor supports at most 500 pounds per square foot.

The layout progresses from private to public. Four individual bedrooms at the south each contain a bed, desk and chair, 50–70 kg of clothing storage, and 50 kg of personal-equipment storage. To the north are communal leisure space, kitchen, four aeroponic crop towers, cardio and strength exercise areas, medical station, workshop, and two bathrooms. NASA required even a pass-through in the medical station's external wall for medicines and biological samples to ground support.

NASA's Monsi Roman recalled that this was the first printed structure of its kind and praised its beauty, referring to the printed domed roof.

From a NASA Challenge to 100 Texas Homes

In NASA's 2019 printed Mars habitat challenge, ICON reached the sealed-testing finals but did not enter the last round. It was then taking Vulcan to Tabasco, Mexico, with nonprofit New Story Homes to build affordable housing for underserved families. Those homes later survived a major earthquake.

A chance meeting strengthened the NASA relationship. In 2021, CEO Jason Ballard was dropping children at summer camp near Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, when he met project manager Monsi Roman. After a conversation in the car, she brought an executive outside to listen.

ICON subsequently received a U.S. Air Force SBIR contract and printed a 3,800-square-foot, approximately 353 m², training barracks in Bastrop, Texas, then North America's largest printed building. NASA joined the project in 2022 with a six-year, USD 57 million Phase III contract for lunar construction technology.

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The Mars Dune Alpha contract came through general contractor Jacobs in 2021. Printing began in June 2021 and interiors were completed in early 2022. It became the CHAPEA test site: a first crew entering in 2023 lived there 378 days, and the second entering in 2025 did the same.

The same Vulcan approach also supported a partnership with Lennar at Wolf Ranch in Georgetown, Texas, producing 100 homes with eight BIG-designed layouts. Priced at USD 400,000–600,000, over 70% have sold. It is currently the world's largest printed-home community. Roman said Mars Dune Alpha helped establish hardware, software, and architectural precedents for ICON's later housing.

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Nanjixiong's Observations

Chinese discussions often focus on whether printing can build homes economically and resist wind and earthquakes. ICON's example emphasizes testing under demanding NASA requirements—confinement, isolation, and human safety—then transferring mature concrete, gantry, and pumping systems into civilian housing.

Shipping materials to Mars is prohibitively expensive, demanding use of local regolith. The resulting pressure on materials and processes can benefit terrestrial construction with aerospace-level maturity. Lavacrete remains terrestrial concrete for now, with Martian soil a future replacement. CarbonX low-carbon concrete has already served Army and Marine Corps barracks, and the USD 57 million lunar contract is secured.

For Chinese construction-printing companies, the lesson extends beyond printing houses; domestic bridges, villas, and schools already exist. ICON developed from a challenge finalist through Air Force and lunar contracts into large housing orders, turning one gantry technology into a product line spanning Earth and space. The technology is shared, but its market sequence and positioning are clearly organized.

AI-translated from an article by Kuaixiong on Nanjixiong, originally published on 2026-11-03. Text and images retain the original source attribution.
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