Manufacturing Heads to Space

Last summer, Jeff Bezos spent 11 minutes in space and determined that it would be best for the planet to move all polluting industries to space. Now, we've heard of many theories, everything from 3D printing native materials to using a combination of moon dust, lunar ice and astronaut urine to build bases. Last week, DARPA kicked off a new program for space-based manufacturing, but it's not focused on manufacturing on mars or the moon. It will, however, use lunar materials to manufacture products on-orbit or in space.The program is called the "Novel Orbital Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass Efficient Design" (NOM4D) program, and DARPA has chosen eight teams to develop new ways to design and manufacture large structures in space. It comes down to a space problem (no pun intended), as rockets simply don't have enough room to launch large Earth-made systems.