8 thoughts on “Building A Home With A 3-D Printer”

  1. I think the cool part is the extent to which it will eventually be automated. Land a couple of “no human needed” bulderbots on the moon some time in advance of people landing, and shelter is done already.

    And who would’ve thought we’d see the phrase “consumer 3D printers” this soon?

  2. What will be the cost of that 2800 sq. ft., 2 story home in the article? Should we advise prospective homeowners not to buy a house yet because this technology will drive prices down to unheard of levels in just a few years?

    1. Where I live, most of the cost of a house is the land (location, location, location), but in places where land is cheap, yeah, I’d say we’re in for more of a drop in housing prices if this happens. It would be pretty handy for places like North Dakota, that have a housing shortage with the influx of workers for the oil fields.

  4. Interesting but still a way off. There is a lot of site prep needed before you can do walls. The reinforcing steel will need to be bent (that I can see becoming automated though) and I don’t see how vertical steel would be placed. Not trying to rain on the parade just pointing out some things that will need to be addressed before this thing goes mainstream. I can see this for road construction PDQ though

  5. @Thomas the invention of techniques to remove the roadblock of high cost orbital launch to space settlement doesn’t break the connection between them. 3D printing is a force multiplier for off-Earth colonization, but the cheaper launch is the more effective such techniques become, potentially dramatically accelerating the pace of colonization.

  6. This is one of the technologies that will enable space settlement.

    I wonder if there is a chance that this technology could push back any need for RLVs by driving down the costs of and improving the reliability of ELVs. Would SpaceX really need to recover Falcon stages if they could be replaced very cheaply and near perfectly?

    1. For that, I think a very large machine to extrude flanged isogrid propellant tanks would be nice.

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