#collaborative_project

[phonemantra-blog]

NASA and ICON are working on the Olympus project – 3D printing for building infrastructure on the Moon As part of the Artemis mission, NASA, in collaboration with the American company ICON, specializing in 3D printing of buildings, plans to launch 3D printing of habitable modules on the Moon by 2040. The collaboration between NASA and ICON has already resulted in ICON receiving $30 million in funding from NASA in 2020 and an additional $57.2 million in 2022 to support Project Olympus. Project Olympus is the development of a 3D printer capable of printing buildings from concrete made from rocks, mineral […]

NASA and ICON are working on the Olympus project - 3D printing for building infrastructure on the Moon As part of the Artemis mission, NASA, in collaboration with the American company ICON, specializing in 3D printing of buildings, plans to launch 3D printing of habitable modules on the Moon by 2040. The collaboration between NASA and ICON has already resulted in ICON receiving $30 million in funding from NASA in 2020 and an additional $57.2 million in 2022 to support Project Olympus. Project Olympus is the development of a 3D printer capable of printing buildings from concrete made from rocks, mineral particles, and regoliths available on the lunar surface. The joint project between NASA and ICON aims to create housing suitable not only for NASA astronauts but also for ordinary citizens, with the long-term goal of creating a permanent human colony on the Moon and eventually Mars. As part of the project, Olympus ICON is also collaborating with architectural firms including Bjarke Ingels Groups and SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture). [caption id="attachment_70957" align="aligncenter" width="714"] NASA and ICON plan[/caption] Currently, plans for the project are presented primarily in the form of digital renderings, but the NASA and ICON team plans to begin extensive testing soon to develop a 3D printer that can operate in the harsh conditions of the lunar environment. This space-based 3D printer, called Olympus, will be controlled from Earth. In this project, weight is a key factor - each additional kilogram of weight on the rocket costs approximately $1,000,000. High radiation and low gravitational field also pose significant problems. NASA and ICON plan to use 3D printing to create architecture on the Moon for future settlements The Huntsville-based Marshall Space Flight Center has more than a dozen test chambers that can simulate radiation and vacuum conditions outside Earth. The ICON 3D printer is scheduled to be tested in the largest of these chambers in February 2024. NASA scientists are also developing a lunar concrete simulant material that could replicate the lunar dust-based material during tests on Earth. They report that they are testing concrete spheres made from simulated regolith. This material is resistant to temperatures up to 1870 °C. In addition to constructing buildings, NASA is also working with universities and private companies to create furniture and interior prototypes created on the Moon. For example, NASA is collaborating with Stanford University researchers who are separating minerals in artificial lunar soil to create tiles that can be used in kitchens or bathrooms. [caption id="attachment_70958" align="aligncenter" width="780"] NASA and ICON plan[/caption] Following the successful lunar flyby of the Artemis I mission in 2022, the Artemis II mission is planned to send four crew members into lunar orbit in November 2024. Then, in 2025, the Artemis III mission is planned, which will put humans on the Moon for the first time since 1972. Two more crewed missions are planned before the end of the decade, and 3D printing of structures on the lunar surface is expected in 2040. The Olympus project is not the only initiative with the approach of using local resources for production and construction on the surface of the Moon. Last year, design agency AI SpaceFactory unveiled a design for the LINA lunar station, created using 3D printing and developed for NASA. LINA's design and testing are part of NASA's REACT project to advance technologies and materials created through the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge. AI SpaceFactory modified its original polymer, which was created from simulated regolith, to use real lunar regolith. This material was tested in NASA vacuum chambers, providing new data for the development of sustainable 3D printers capable of creating large-scale structures. The University of New South Wales is collaborating with Australian design startup Luyten to accelerate the research and development of a 3D printer capable of printing from lunar materials. Through Project Meeka, these organizations have teamed up to accelerate the development and testing of a framed 3D printer for lunar regolith called Platypus Galacticas. This system is designed for the rapid construction of lunar infrastructure with dimensions of up to 9 × 12 meters.

[samuelstephensondawssba3b]

example of render errors I experienced with using Booleans on cloth sims in blender 

[samuelstephensondawssba3b]

a quick test video showing my ash/disintegrate texture on blender’s Suzanne monkey head model 

[samuelstephensondawssba3b]

another fabric test for the 3rd section, testing pre-cut fabric being dragged in 2 separate directions, this clearly doesn’t look quite right either.

I also tried using a community build of blender 2.79 which has a ‘fracture modifier’ but I couldn’t get this to work at all.

 I also looked into Houdini’s vellum cloth tearing simulation, but at this point in the project it seems like it would likely be easier to simply tear a material physically in stop-motion, and this would likely fit the aesthetic of the piece better anyway.

[samuelstephensondawssba3b]

I’ve been making multiple attempts to simulate tearing fabric for use in my 3rd section of the personal showcase, nothing so far has yielded the results I want so I am instead going to do this traditionally potentially with tissue in stop-motion.

[samuelstephensondawssba3b]

blender burning paper

This is for my 3rd section of the collaborative project. 

I was originally going to do this with stop-motion where I would repeatedly burn and photograph a disk of black card to animate it turning to ash. However I’ve been dissatisfied with almost all of the stop-motion work I’ve been throughout this project, and a lot of it has had to be replaced with digital animation.

I was going to do this animation with simulation in Houdini, but after a brief attempt at this I decided that the time constraints of the project are such that I don’t have time to learn new software and iterate on this scene in Houdini.

So I instead did this in Blender. This is a procedural shader I created, where any object it’s applied to turns transparent from the outside in with an ashy border being generated to create the effect of burning. I also distort the effect to make it more organic looking. This is one of the more involved procedural textures I have made during this project. 

These complex node based textures are better inline with my overall career plans.

I’ve also been looking into adding particles to this but I’m not sure that I’d want to use that.

[samuelstephensondawssba3b]

Burning paper asset blender test animation.

[samuelstephensondawssba3b]

This is the final version of the mechanical organ animation I did, I consulted Lois about where I should go with the animation. I ultimately decided to redo the background in photoshop as I’d done in my style frame for the piece. I changed the animation of the rig to remain the same speed throughout but added back in the limb falling down (this is just a separate duplicate rig that comes in at the correct frame) and I changed the ending to have the mechanical organ split apart at the end. I feel this adequately addresses the problem of the animation being too simple or boring while being slow enough to fit the delivery of the voice lines. While the ending, and to some extent the whole piece, is a bit too direct a representation of what is being said, I am fairly happy with the overall piece, and the arms of the machine are only vaguely evocative of prison bars.