{"id":239394,"date":"2026-06-21T12:04:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/laser-origami-could-help-astronauts-build-structures-on-the-moon"},"modified":"2026-06-21T12:04:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:04:00","slug":"laser-origami-could-help-astronauts-build-structures-on-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/laser-origami-could-help-astronauts-build-structures-on-the-moon","title":{"rendered":"Laser \u2018origami\u2019 could help astronauts build structures on the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/laser-origami-could-help-astronauts-build-structures-on-the-moon2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>University of Florida researchers are exploring how lasers could help astronauts build structures on the moon using materials already available there, including lunar soil transformed into glass. The work, led by Victoria M. Miller, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and researcher with the UF Astraeus Space Institute, recently completed a research phase focused on laser forming, a manufacturing process that bends materials without physical contact.<\/p>\n<p>The team\u2019s latest paper, published in Lasers in Manufacturing and Materials Processing, examined how different atmospheric conditions affect laser bending, an important question for future manufacturing in the vacuum of space. The long-term applications extend beyond space exploration and could also support flexible manufacturing efforts on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is also for Earth applications. We\u2019re focused on flexible manufacturing for defense applications,\u201d said Miller, who works in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>University of Florida researchers are exploring how lasers could help astronauts build structures on the moon using materials already available there, including lunar soil transformed into glass. The work, led by Victoria M. Miller, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and researcher with the UF Astraeus Space Institute, recently completed [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}