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SpaceX Launches Supplies to ISS, Including Its First 3D Printer
A "flawless" launch early Sunday from Cape Canaveral has sent a load of supplies on its way to the International Space Station aboard a Falcon 9-lofted SpaceX Dragon capsule. Food, care packages and provisions for NASA's astronauts make up more than a third of the cargo onboard Dragon. But the spacecraft also has experiments and equipment that will eventually help scientists complete 255 research projects in total, according to NASA. In Dragon's trunk, there's an instrument dubbed RapidScat, which will be installed outside the space station to measure the speed and direction of ocean winds on Earth. Among the commercially funded experiments onboard Dragon is a materials-science test from the sports company Cobra Puma Golf designed to build a stronger golf club.
Dragon is also hauling the first space-grade 3D printer, built by Made in Space, which will test whether the on-the-spot manufacturing technology is viable without gravity.
3D printing is one of those things that will be pretty much essential for successful manned missions farther away than the moon.
Being unable to fix broken things will be fatal if the nearest spare parts are nine months away, and a 3D printer or two can, conceivably, replace a great many individual spare parts....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I'd expect that from eight year olds, not adults.
Perhaps the problem is that you've lost hold of what makes 8-year-olds so delightful? There was a cynical curmudgeon about just about every technological advance throughout human history, and despite that flight is routine and inexpensive. Horseless carriages clog the roads. Skyscrapers crown cities. Nuclear reactors pump out gigawatts of electricity. Ships the size of skyscrapers ply the seas carrying stuff built by robots. We carry some significant percentage of all human knowledge in our pockets. At every step, there were doubters. You are that guy now.
If you want to manufacture stuff in space, you can't just jump right to space foundries and space smelters. Baby steps.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I am not an atheist, just practical. While I personally believe we'll get our acts together and get the technology to prevent most major extinction events before they happen (such as large asteroids, and even climate change), eventually our sun will expand and burn away all life on Earth. I see no reason why life on Earth should just accept its extinction lying down. There won't be any humans around, as we would recognize humans, but whatever our descendants look like, I'd like to hope they've gotten off the planet long before that happens, and brought along plenty of other Earthlings with them.
This century, we have the ability to get at least some of our eggs out of this one basket. Over the coming millennium, I expect we will be able to travel to other solar systems in generational ships. I happen to believe life is sacred. Shouldn't we try to preserve it for as long as we can?
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Are you high, or do you really buy into this religious nonsense about SpaceX?
Boeing have contributed to hundreds of significant aerospace advances over the past century. They are still a fine engineering company. Yes, they've become bloated and expensive, but that happens to EVERY large organisation over time.
SpaceX has achieved pretty much fuck all in its first decade compared to what Boeing was working on when it received its first (far smaller) government contracts.
"Horses can make other horses. That's a trick that tractor's haven't figured out yet."
-- Heinlein
I doubt Heinlein put an apostrophe in tractors.
Enigma