Slashdot Mirror
Planetary Resources Reveals Out-of-This-World 3D Printing (gizmag.com)
Zothecula writes: If one is going to get into the asteroid mining business, one needs to prove that you can do something with what's brought back. That seems to be the thinking behind Planetary Resources' recent presentation at CES in Las Vegas, where the asteroid mining company unveiled the first object 3D printed using extraterrestrial materials. Made in collaboration with 3D Systems, the nickel-iron sculpture represents a stylized, geometric spacecraft, such as might be used for asteroid mining or prospecting. Planetary Resources says it is representative of what could be printed in a weightless environment.
the miner brings the material to the buyer and collects payment. the buyer sells to the fabricator who operates the printer.
But first we need to print more printers.
year only gets longer if the angular momentum is changed in a particular way. Judicious planning can actually make the year shorter as well. With luck we can get rid of the slowing of the rotational rate that will be caused by the melting of the ice caps.
All the nickel near the surface of this planet comes from meteorites. This is a non-story to generate hype. There is NOTHING to see here.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Yeah, our year will be as short as Jupiter's if we keep adding mass!
Really, this should have been the first reply to this story. Leaving soooo disappointed.
Did you completely flunk Physics??? Orbital speed is set by orbiting mass. . .
Well, it looks like you struggled in either physics or English. Your statement only bears meaning if the orbiting mass is any significant portion of the primary body. Even Jupiter is only 0.1% of the mass of the sun, so it's mass is irrelevant in computing its orbital velocity about the sun.
you can change rotation speed by moving where the mass is located, consider a ice skater spinning. pull the arms in, spin faster, move them out, spin slower
I don't even get the point of this. Was there anybody doubting that you could laser sinter prepared nickel-iron powder? People have been laser sintering iron alloys containing nickel and cobalt for ages. I care about whether they can turn surface rock (loose or firmly attached, in chunks or as non-uniform dust) into an acceptable printing feedstock in microgravity and get it into the printer's feed system. Heck, at least modify your 3d printer to be able to handle microgravity - good luck using a stock DMP 320 in space, the dust will just drift off. Do something meaningful here.
I'm actually a fan of the concept of space mining - I think that with ~2 decades of actual funded, dedicated effort the mining of precious-metal-rich earth-crossing asteroids could potentially prove profitable (using a quench gun to eject unguided projectiles (sintered into an ideal reentry shape) onto an Earth-intercept trajectory). Such bodies are more precious metal rich than even the best mines on Earth (as well as often with gem-quality peridot), 1-2 orders of magnitude more than typical mines, zero overburden (many Earth mines cost hundreds of millions to billions just to strip the overburden), a massive premium on sales due to the materials' origin, and our old foe the rocket equation doesn't come into play since they're such weak gravity wells. And there's really not all that much technology to develop... we've got landing in microgravity down, we need to get better at anchoring and roving, we're good at scooping regolith but it needs to be large scale and continuous, and we need a nuclear or solar sinterer and an aimable quench gun Based on other NASA missions, total development cost is probably on the order of $2-3B, including one or two smaller technology testing missions. And less cost on future mines.
But this printing thing is just pointless. It has absolutely no bearing on any of the technical challenges related to space mining or resource utilization.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
What is missing in their pitch: you definitely need to incorporate cloud-based AI drone technology. How are you going to get investors suckered in just by showing a crummy model? They need to hire me for sure.
You could certainly set up a mechanism to do that - but they haven't done that either. They haven't done anything out of the ordinary here.
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
Is their 3D printer able to operate in near-zero gravity? That does not look like something obvious.
Laser sinterers don't work that way - they lay down a layer of even, fine dust, then melt it with a laser. There has to be something keeping the dust down - it won't stick on its own.
Sounds like you're thinking of something more like laser spraying (which is imho a more interesting tech, as it yields better material properties and an almost unbounded array of materials and even finishing options.)
He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
Netflix is over ... buffer ... buffer .. rated.
Call me when they start building planets. I have a design for a new Earth, but all the fiddly bits around the fjords are in Africa.
And by 'year' I meant 'day'. My bad.
In any case the melting of the ice caps will result in a redistribution of the water mass, and the general warming of the ocean water will actually expand the volume (not the mass) of the water and thus also change the rotational inertial mass distribution.