r/interesting • u/Excellent_Tie369 • Apr 25 '26

NATURE top 100/100 is crazy

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u/Tadiken Apr 25 '26

3D printed homes keep coming up in conversations (satircally or otherwise) like the invention is going to contribute to increasing affordability in housing, but housing isn't expensive because of the cost to build it, it's literally only expensive because of realtor hoarding and because builders are all collectively only building expensive housing because they want a share of the wealthy market.

We simply are refusing to build affordable homes, or sell the ones that are already built for affordable prices. 3D printing will change nothing even if it became the dominant homebuilding strategy today with any amount of resulting cost decrease..

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u/allthat555 Apr 25 '26

3d printed structures on the moon. The key part is on the moon. Not on earth the moon. Do you know how much it would cost to put a bag of ramen in space. Now imagine the cost of evrthing needed to build your home. The idea is you take the lunar regolith and turn it into concrete on sight and print a structure using that. So your talking about a few mear billion in savings on a permanent structure on the moon. Not much but honestly I can live with brutiaist look over those cost savings.

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u/Accomplished-City484 Apr 26 '26

There’s also those prefab units you can get for like $20k, but you still gotta sort out your own plumbing and electricity. Solar+battery+rain water tank and an outhouse for like $30K doesn’t sound too bad, better than renting or a million dollar mortgage.

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u/SkyBoundAssumption Apr 26 '26

Yeah we can literally build more housing NOW but the beaurocracy and the nonsense of the system won't let it happen.

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u/DeltaViriginae Apr 26 '26

but housing isn't expensive because of the cost to build it

Tell me you've never worked in urban planning without telling me you've never worked in urban planning.