Bioplastics are plastics made from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable starch or microbes, rather than petroleum as traditional plastics are made from. Obviously we don’t expect to find petroleum on the Moon but by growing crops to produce plastic we will be able to produce our own plastic.

When combined with Desk Top Manufacturing bioplastics will allow us to manufacture a large number of different items, from spare parts for equipment to every day objects such as cups and plates, and so reduce the amount of items we will need to import from Earth. Importing stuff from Earth will be very expensive and in the initial phases of our Moon base we expect our budgets tom be exceedingly tight.

Bioplastic is also biodegradable and so used parts, and items such as broken plates, can be added to our composting system and used to grow new plants. Thus we can completely recycle components and items from everyday use. This also means that if items imported from Earth are also made from biodegradable bioplastic we can use them to increase the biomass of the Moon base.

All in all bioplastics are good for the long term success of our Moon base and all plastic items used in all stages of the Moon base development, right from day one, should be made from bioplastic so that used and broken equipment can be recycled and added to the amount of Biomass on the Moon.

It is important to maximize the amount of biomass added to the Moon base in order to create as big an ecosystem as possible for our CELSS. The bigger the ecosystem the more robust it will be, and remember our ultimate goal is not an “arctic research station on the Moon”, but a city and an entire country, so we will need really big ecosystems to support tens of thousands, if not millions, of people.

By maximizing our use of bioplastic in our designs even for the first mission we will help our long term goal of building a new country by firstly reducing the amount of mass that has to be expensively imported from Earth, and secondly “dual purposing” that mass as biodegradable plastic that can be added to our CELSS.

The first is Fab @ Home which seeks to make a low cost freeform fabrication systems.

The second is RepRap which is making a fabricator that can make all the parts needed to make a new fabricator! Can anyone say Von Neumann machine

Desktop Manufacturing, Fab @ Home, RepRap offer us the ability to make what we need without having to import everything from Earth. They also have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing here on Earth.

Any Moon Base is going to need a lot of machinery to run it. Machinery that is essential to the health and well being of of the people such as essential life support equipment, as well as as host of other equipment ranging from communications to personal entertainment. All this machinery and equipment is going to have to be maintained and repaired. The cost of transportation from Earth of replacement parts and new equipment is going to remain astronomically high for the foreseeable future so one of the key decisions affecting the success of any Moon Base is going to be the list of spare parts that are brought along.

On a finite budget we will not be able to bring a replacement for every part of every machine to the Moon. And while we will be bringing sturdy and robust equipment with us we do not know what will break until it breaks. But by designing our equipment to be made from parts that can be replicated by a Desktop Manufacturing system we eliminate the need to, and the expense of, bringing every spare part for every machine from Earth. Instead of shipping completed spare parts from Earth we can ship the materials needed to manufacture which ever spare part needs to be made. We will need to bring essential parts that can not be manufactured on the Moon. And we will need a store of spare parts that will need to be replaced immediately upon failure, as it can take some time to manufacture spare parts using Desktop Manufacturing techniques.
However by designing our equipment using parts that can be manufactured on the Moon by DeskTop Manufacturing equipment we will eliminate the need to ship parts from Earth and also enhance the security of the Moon Base, most especially in it’s early days.