Space research and extraterrestrial construction industry

Abstract

Advance of civilization has been realized through the ages by exploration of unknown parts of the Earth and by exploiting new resources thus acquired. There are currently practically no new areas on this planet to be explored and exploited. This is achieved by the completion of the period called globalization. As a natural continuation of this process, humans will now explore and exploit new areas beyond Earth, i.e. in space. Moon has already been explored partly, it awaits a complete exploration and colonization. The next step will be Mars and beyond. Habitation on these new space bodies will firstly necessitate construction of outposts on these bodies. Thus construction on the Moon, Mars, and other space bodies can be considered to be an important component of space research. In the present article, an overview of space research is presented together with the innovations awaited in space construction industry and the importance of feedback of these studies to construction industry in general. © 2017 IEEE.