NASA and America Makes' contest to develop ideas for a 3D printed space habitat has converged on 30 finalists.

The contest, announced earlier this year, required entrants to develop the fundamental technologies necessary to manufacture an off-world habitat using mission recycled materials and/or local indigenous materials. The idea is to house a fictional astronaut team of four on distant Mars. Maybe these particular designs won’t make it off-world, but the ideas and techniques created during the contest will surely help that happen.
The first level of the competition involves the design, while subsequent levels will investigate the feasibility of manufacture using indigenous materials and actual fabrication.
A cash prize pool of USD$50,000 will be divided between three finalists at this year’s NYC Makerfaire, evidently selected from the thirty finalists.
We’re not going to show you all thirty of the finalists, that’s more than we can do. But we can show you three that caught our interest.
At the top of this page we see an image of team GAMMA’s entry, which involves a combination of 3D printing and inflated structures.

Team MASS’s entry above involves a familiar 3D printing process.

Here we see PARALLAX’s “Radicle”.
All the entries are quite different and at first glance appear practical, although that factor will be evaluated as the contest proceeds. We’re obviously a very long way to making 3D printed habitats a reality, but the first steps on such a journey are always found by brainstorming up concepts like these. Good luck to all finalists!
Via 3DPChallenge