More "instant house" possibilities

[Spencer W Hunter <shunter at U dot Arizona dot EDU>]

It's not a dome, but it's still beyond cool:

http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-05/features/whole-house-machine/

"In a sunny laboratory at the University of Southern California, a
robotically controlled nozzle squeezes a ribbon of concrete onto a wooden
plank. Every two minutes and 14 seconds, the nozzle completes a circuit,
topping the previous ribbon with a fresh one. Thus a five-foot-long wall
risesa wall built without human intervention.

"The wall is humble but portentous. 'If you can build a wall, you can
build a house', says Behrokh Khoshnevis, an engineering professor, as he
watches the gray mixture squirt out in neat courses from what he calls a
contour crafter, a machine about eight feet tall and six feet wide. If all
goes as planned, Khoshnevis will use a larger, more advanced version of
the device later this year to erect the first robotically constructed
house in just one day."

Dr. Khoshnevis ( http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~khoshnev/ ) was recently
mentioned in a Wired magazine article:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/view.html?pg=4

"Just as termites build castles on Earth, robots could erect skyscrapers
on the moon."

Spencer Hunter, Tucson, AZ
gopher://www.u.arizona.edu:80/hGET%20/%7Eshunter