B.C. father-son team developing technology to 3D print in space using moon dust
VANCOUVER — For Alex and Sergei Dobrianski, the building blocks of an upcoming revolution in the space industry are found in moon dust.
Over the past five years, the father-and-son team has been developing the technology to send a 3D printer to the moon that can extract and use the various fine-grained metals coating the lunar surface to build everything from satellites to computer processors.
“Our path is to establish on the lunar surface some kind of 3D-printing factory,” said Alex, who was 35 when he came to Canada from the Ukraine with his wife and three children. “We want to move all space production of any space equipment from Earth to the moon.”
Alex’s laboratory is in his home on one of the upper storeys of a downtown Vancouver highrise. Space-themed posters pepper the walls and pieces of electronics equipment are scattered about the room.