

Download, print, build your Martian home in 24 hours - lifeisstillgood
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29208276

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mch82
See the printer at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of
Engineering. I worked in Dr. Khoshnevis' lab as an undergraduate there 10
years ago. He seems to be about 10 years ahead of other 3d printing
technologies at any given time. Here is the home page for Contour Crafting:
[http://www.contourcrafting.org](http://www.contourcrafting.org).

The cool part the BBC story leaves out is that they print with material that
simulates what the science community anticipates martian and lunar soil will
be like!

~~~
toomuchtodo
> The cool part the BBC story leaves out is that they print with material that
> simulates what the science community anticipates martian and lunar soil will
> be like!

We should be launching habitation fabrication equipment as soon as SpaceX has
the lifting capacity for it!

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bluthru
>"While some embraced the idea in a heartbeat, others felt this project
discredited their art and profession."

I doubt it. Most single-family residences are already something picked out of
a catalogue of generic designs.

~~~
yellowapple
Having lived in many such homes... yeah, can confirm. Single-family residences
are _very_ generic, with very minor differences in design nowadays, at least
in the western half of the States where I am.

I have a feeling these architects feeling "discredited" are the ones whose
work in the field of single-family homes is very much discreditable. Unless
you're going for some fancy one-off custom architectural job for your home,
you're buying something that's already pretty cookie-cutter.

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pcunite
This seems similar to what Andrey Kudenko did here:
[http://www.cnet.com/news/worlds-first-3d-printed-castle-
buil...](http://www.cnet.com/news/worlds-first-3d-printed-castle-built-house-
next/)

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lifeisstillgood
To me this is part of software eating the world. It seems like a good idea,
and probably is, but now architects have to become software engineers. No
longer can they rely on the builders to sort out the uneven land or the plans
that are off by 2 mm.

Its perfect or it does not go "compile".

Software really is eating theworld.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> but now architects have to become software engineers.

As you said, software is eating the world. In the end, you won't have doctors,
lawyers, architects, aviators. You'll have software engineers/developers who
understand medicine, law, building trades, and flight.

Once you understand concepts, everything else is just syntax.

~~~
lukifer
I guess it's not just physicists: [http://xkcd.com/793/](http://xkcd.com/793/)
:)

It's more likely we'll see domain experts in X learn sufficient programming
(possibly leveraging custom tools and DSLs), rather than see programmers
mastering X.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> It's more likely we'll see domain experts in X learn sufficient programming
> (possibly leveraging custom tools and DSLs), rather than see programmers
> mastering X.

Depends on the domain. Are most of the Watson developers medical doctors? It
already diagnosis cancer at a better rate than a second year medical student.

