LEGO – ESA Space Bricks

LEGO – ESA Space Bricks . Lego

LEGO – ESA Space Bricks created using regolith, the sandy material on the Moon‘s surface, as a building material.

They successfully created a proof of concept called LEGO Space Bricks, which are 3D-printed using meteorite dust instead of actual regolith. The grey bricks, while slightly rough in texture, fit together just like LEGO pieces. This suggests that similar bricks could be made on the Moon, eliminating the need to transport materials from Earth.

The ESA team looked into using Moon materials for construction to avoid the high costs of sending tons of Earth-made bricks into space. The Moon’s surface is covered in regolith, but aside from the Apollo mission samples, there is none available on Earth.

LEGO – ESA Space Bricks . Lego

ESA Science Officer Aidan Cowley explains:

“No one has ever built a structure on the Moon, so we have to work out not only how we build them but what we build them out of, as we can’t take any materials with us.

My team and I love creative construction and had the idea to explore whether space dust could be formed into a brick similar to a LEGO brick, so we could test different building techniques. The result is amazing, and while the bricks may look a little rougher than usual, importantly the clutch power still works, enabling us to play and test our designs.”

source Lego