Envisioning Extraterrestrial Construction and the Future Construction Workforce: A Collective Perspective

摘要

Humanity’s evolution toward an interplanetary species poses a new frontier for the construction industry: extraterrestrial construction. With fast technological advancements in manufacturing and robotics, it is a matter of when, not if, before humans make perpetual habitats on nearby planetary bodies. We envision the emerging frontier of the construction industry as extraterrestrial construction, where the role of workers and their required skills will change dramatically. Due to the extreme and hazardous outer-space conditions, the future of extraterrestrial construction will be technology-intensive, from using onsite machine and robot operations to using cyberphysical systems for managing logistical operations. Accordingly, the role and skillsets of construction workers in future extraterrestrial construction projects will contrast with the current practices on Earth. We aim to present a collective perspective on the nature of future extraterrestrial construction and the hierarchy of the skills required by future workers, as well as emerging technologies that can be used for developing a future-ready workforce. To accomplish this, we convened a national interdisciplinary workshop, engaging diverse stakeholders in the United States, including researchers, educators, and professionals, from academia, industry, and government. This paper summarizes the outcomes of our workshop, structured around three core themes: future work (extraterrestrial construction), future workers (extraterrestrial workforce), and future technology (emerging technologies for workforce training). The detailed exploration within these three themes marks an initial endeavor to chart a course for training in extraterrestrial construction, particularly with NASA’s Moon to Mars Program in mind.