NASA 'Emails' a Socket Wrench To the ISS

HughPickens.com writes: "Sarah LeTrent reports at CNN that NASA just emailed the design of a socket wrench to astronauts so that they could print it out in the orbit. The ratcheting socket wrench was the first "uplink tool" printed in space, according to Grant Lowery, marketing and communications manager for Made In Space, which built the printer in partnership with NASA. The tool was designed on the ground, emailed to the space station and then manufactured where it took four hours to print out the finished product. The space agency hopes to one day use the technology to make parts for broken equipment in space and long-term missions would benefit greatly from onboard manufacturing capabilities. "I remember when the tip broke off a tool during a mission," recalls NASA astronaut TJ Creamer, who flew aboard the space station during Expedition 22/23 from December 2009 to June 2010. "I had to wait for the next shuttle to come up to bring me a new one. Now, rather than wait for a resupply ship to bring me a new tool, in the future, I could just print it."

Comments

My sockets are made of high quality steel

[Todd Palin]

I really wouldn't want to use a plastic socket on much of anything. But, why on earth was there not a decent socket set on the ISS in the first place? (pun intended)

Re:My sockets are made of high quality steel

[LostMyBeaver]

There almost certainly was a socket wrench available. The point is that a socket wrench is a highly complex tool that depends on precision and rigidity to produce. The fact that the multiple components of a socket wrench could in fact be printed is a major accomplishment. A hammer or screwdriver would not have been an appropriate test. This was.

The question is, after printing it, was the produced wrench a suitable alternative and could it accomplish the task it was needed for. ABS, even in the resolution and density they're printing isn't very rigid. I have seen a great deal of information regarding the fact that the tool was printing and more so, how excited everyone was that Autodesk Inventor was used. What I haven't seen is whether ABS used :
  1) had a negative impact to the air quality and scrubbers on the ISS. The ABS I use (even stuff I specially looked for) produces a great deal of noxious fumes. I tend to print with the windows open.
  2) The printout was rigid enough to be useful as a tool. I have absolutely no doubt that making extra parts for the station is entirely possible and smarter than keeping spare parts for everything. But did they manage to produce a wrench worth using?

As a bonus... can they release the design they printed as a benchmark for the hobbyist community to use for making their own improved printers. The high resolution photos of the wrench looked great.

Re:My sockets are made of high quality steel

[thegarbz]

I really wouldn't want to use a plastic socket on much of anything.

Really? Because I would give my left kidney for it if having one would save my life. I don't think anyone actually sent this print up there because they don't have one. There's these things called "proof of concept".A lot of slashdot readers seem to be unfamiliar with the concept.

Re:My sockets are made of high quality steel

[_merlin]

It isn't on earth, dumbarse. It's a space station.

Re:My sockets are made of high quality steel

[Anonymous Coward]

They likely printed it with Titanium.

It would however use far less energy to use a CNC machine. Laser sintering should be reserved for very complex parts that cannot be machined.

Spontaneously regular milling in space sounds like a really bad idea to me.
First of all the base material cost is very high in space so methods that creates large amounts of leftovers will be very expensive. Not only do you have the high cost of transporting material that you won't use, you also need to store that material.
Then we have the problem of managing leftover particles in microgravity, you don't want a risk of those going anywhere. At that point I'm not entirely sure that you assessment that it requires less energy is correct.

Re:My sockets are made of high quality steel

[Immerman]

The vast majority of the atmosphere, by volume, is far too thin to breathe. Hell, there's mountain tops where you can stand with your feet firmly on the ground and still not have enough air to breathe without extended acclimization. And the atmosphere is far, far deeper than any mountain is tall.

There's no clear line marking the upper limit of the atmosphere, but the ISS is orbiting low enough that it needs regular orbital boosts to avoid being brought down by air resistance.

Re:My sockets are made of high quality steel

[Immerman]

Cooling would probably be an issue in vacuum - the primary cooling channel for freshly deposited plastic would be by transfering heat to the layer below it. The first few layers might not have an issue, but I suspect that as it got thicker the rigidity of the print would suffer dramatically, especially if there were any narrow choke points restricting the heat flow. It'd be like trying to print with jello after a while. You could slow the printing to allow adequate thermal dissipation, but that seems counterproductive.

You might also have other issues - for example what's the boiling point of plastic in vacuum? If nothing else those toxic gasses we're trying to avoid are going to escape from the plastic much more energetically if there's no ambient pressure.

Re:Plastic socket wrench?

[rossdee]

Maybe, but don't forget its hard to exert much torque when you're in zero G

Anyway the ISS is one of the few places where a 3d printer is justified.

Re:Plastic socket wrench?

[CaptQuark]

I'll bet you any amount it won't break. This is a technology demonstration and proof of concept, not a stress-to-failure type test. The main goal is to upload the build file, print it, then return it to earth to compare against the reference model. Some of the questions they might be working to answer are: Do the extrusion heads work the same way in microgravity? Do micro-bubbles form in the material without gravity to collapse them? Do wisps of hot filament drift around the build chamber without gravity to control them?

Imagine turning an earth-bound 3D printer upside down and printing an object. What other issues does gravity alleviate that we don't know about?

~~

A PSA brought to you by the MPAA

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't steal a car.
You wouldn't steal a handbag.
You wouldn't steal a tv.
You wouldn't steal a socket wrench.

3D PRINTING IS STEALING.
STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW.
3D PRINTING. IT'S A CRIME.

(BTW: 2nd time I've tried to post this. Fuck your stupid fucking unreadable captchas, slashdot.)

ISS to Mission Control

[PPH]

ISS: "Could you please e-mail us the instructions for a wrench?"

Ground: "Please clarify. What kind of wrench do you need?"

ISS: "It doesn't matter. We are going to use it as a hammer."