{"id":212511,"date":"2025-10-20T05:56:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T05:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/212511\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T05:56:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T05:56:16","slug":"astronauts-could-live-in-glass-domes-made-of-lunar-dust-nasa-plans-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/212511\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronauts could live in glass domes made of lunar dust, Nasa plans reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The cost of transporting heavy items like building materials to the Moon is huge. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So scientists have<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/newsround\/articles\/cm2xeym0m62o\" class=\"ssrcss-jx182a-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">been investigating how materials already on the Moon can be used<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lunar soil, also known as regolith, is made up of tiny particles of natural glass and minerals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Skyeports argue that unlike traditional ways of building which use 3-D printing and pre-fabricated parts, glass structures can use lunar glass and be built on the Moon itself. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to the researchers, the natural glass would be melted using technology similar to a microwave oven.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They also plan to develop something they are calling a &#8216;smart microwave furnace&#8221; to melt and blow the glass bubble sphere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As well as the advantages in the building technique,  Skyeports say the design would resist extreme conditions on the Moon such as the low gravity and changing temperatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cost of transporting heavy items like building materials to the Moon is huge. So scientists havebeen investigating&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-212511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}