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ISS's 3-D Printer Creates Its First Object In Space
An anonymous reader writes: NASA reports that the 3-D printer now installed on the International Space Station has finally finished its first creation. After it was installed on November 17th and calibrated over the next week, ground control sent it instructions yesterday to build a faceplate for the extruder's own casing. The process was mostly a success. "[Astronaut Butch Wilmore] Wilmore removed the part from the printer and inspected it. Part adhesion on the tray was stronger than anticipated, which could mean layer bonding is different in microgravity, a question the team will investigate as future parts are printed. Wilmore installed a new print tray, and the ground team sent a command to fine-tune the printer alignment and printed a third calibration coupon. When Wilmore removes the calibration coupon, the ground team will be able to command the printer to make a second object. The ground team makes precise adjustments before every print, and the results from this first print are contributing to a better understanding about the parameters to use when 3-D printing on the space station."
Things will start to get interesting when astronauts can create semiconductors in in space. I believe there are some demonstration technologies using ink-jet printers.
I would imagine it will be a long time before we can see the amazingly tiny devices that can be built on Earth, but I would expect that replacement electronics for communications and actuator drivers should be achievable in fairly short order. I would guess that replacement solar panel segments and power supply components (including batteries) would be on the menu as well.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
bad choice of term. Sounds like the license is really unfavorable.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
> We're missing a part for our IKEA couch AND the 3D printer is broken...
ABORT!
ppppppppppiiiiirrrraaaaacccyyy iiiinnnnnn sssspppaaaccceee the MPPA/RIAA must be crapping their pants.
At first I thought they were a bunch of backwards anti-technology morons, but seems they have real capabilities. The only thing they could be making up there is space weapons, aimed right at America and Israel. Normally I'm against war, but maybe now is the time to take these guys out. Before they take us out first.
After it was installed on November 17th and calibrated over the next week,
...
Wilmore installed a new print tray, and the ground team sent a command to fine-tune the printer alignment and printed a third calibration coupon.
An "alignment coupon" is printed before each job. So, the first TWO objects printed by a 3d printer were "alignment coupons".
FTFA:
installed the printer on Nov. 17 and conducted the first calibration test print. Based on the test print results, the ground control team sent commands to realign the printer and printed a second calibration test on Nov. 20. These tests verified that the printer was ready for manufacturing operations. On Nov. 24, ground controllers sent the printer the command to make the first printed part: a faceplate of the extruder’s casing. This demonstrated that the printer can make replacement parts for itself
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Things will start to get interesting when astronauts can create semiconductors in in space
Things will also get even more interesting when the full range of 3D printing materials can be used in microgravity. From ceramics to metals, polymers of various types... it will soon become possible to make virtually anything in space.
When things really start to get interesting is when we can also create these 3D printing materials in space, from in-situ space resources like asteroids and lunar surface mines. When we can do the whole prociss up there, without needing to "up-mass" anything from Earth, that will be a major turning point for humanity.
I'm very curious to see how various chemical processes, such as distillation, might be adapted to a microgravity environment. But I'm sure somebody will figure it out.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
You mean, like Philae landing?
You still have to "up-mass" the raw materials. The advantage of printing is that you only have to send up the raw materials that you expect to need, not a bunch of spares prefabbed that you might never need. Given how overengineered space equipment is, and how fragile printed parts can be, that might not be a vast advantage for now. The big thing is that's a first step towards being able to deliver bulk raw materials and turn them into something in space; eventually you could create a fab plant on an asteroid or some other source of materials and make ships or other complex things. Eventually. Maybe. But probably not until we've all died here on earth.
Why does your space religion always include this doomsday scenario?
You might do better to ask why yours seems to pretend it couldn't happen.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Now we can start cluttering up orbit with useless plastic trinkets instead of just old rocket / satellite peices!
Ask the Russians...you can't tell me they didn't try to distil some vodka on the MIR
I think there's a wealth of evidence that within the next century, everyone who is currently alive will either have died or will be very old.
...printing a moon base. http://www.esa.int/Highlights/...
Supid nucularphopic yoorpan's. Should've used an RTG.
I have a huge beard and a shaved head, I'm totally rad!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You still have to "up-mass" the raw materials.
For now, yes. That's why I said the real revolution would be learning how to harvest raw materials from space. And it won't take nearly as long as you seem to think.
I'll be surprised if it's more than five years before the first privately owned fuel depot begins operating in LEO. And I'll only be slightly less surprised if it takes more than ten years for the first lunar-mined fuel to be delivered to that depot.
Maybe you hadn't heard, but there are people being paid to work out how to do all these things, and have been for years already. And in case you hadn't noticed, SpaceX is about to slash the cost-per-pound to orbit by an order of magnitude, once they can land and re-fly a booster (scheduled in the next few months). The next few years and decades in space are going to be pretty spectacular.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
As yours pretends we can do anything about it.
Is nobody else concerned that ISIS have a 3D printer?!
If the SpaceX cost to orbit will be reduced by an order of magnitude, we won't need those orbiting fuel depots, or the insanely expensive lunar mining operation.
We'll need the fuel depots in any scenario, simply because LEO is a more versatile launch/assembly venue, capable of handling much larger missions than anything that could be launched (with or without fuel) from Earth.
And don't assume that mining the moon will be "insanely" expensive until you've seen the methods that are being worked on right now. Bottom line, the cost of the fuel itself will be just a tiny fraction of the total cost to deliver it on orbit. And as it turns out, there's a significant advantage for producing fuel on the moon -- it takes a bit more than 3x as much delta-v to move a certain mass from Earth to LEO as it does from the moon to LEO (9.3 km/s vs. 2.74 km/s, respectively).
Let's say Elon gets launch cost down to $125/lb to LEO. That means he's paying $1000 per gallon, just for transport to the depot. Which means my "insanely expensive" lunar miners can spend $500 per gallon to extract the fuel, and still beat Elon's price at the LEO depot. That is a significant forcing function, sufficient to drive mining activity on the moon for decades to come.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
> Maybe you hadn't heard, but there are people being paid to work out how to do all these things,
Yup, I'm one of them. I'm working on the idea of a "Seed Factory" ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/S... ), which is a starter kit of machines which you expand by making parts for more machines. A 3D printer is likely to be part of the starter kit, but you need several others. The engineering R&D questions are what machines should be in the starter kit, what is the optimal growth path, and how do those vary with available raw materials and the desired end outputs.
The point here is sending a whole industrial plant into orbit to process an asteroid is much too massive. You want to bootstrap up from a minimal starter kit, and build the rest out of the asteroid itself, as much as possible. You won't reach 100%, some stuff will still need to come from Earth, but saving 85-98% of the launch weight (what we think is a reasonable goal) is still a huge advantage.
Right, and if your little fantasy actually worked, why would we need space?