Posted on 12/21/2014 1:25:28 PM PST by shove_it
For the first time ever, hardware designed on the ground has been emailed to space to meet the needs of an astronaut. From a computer in California, Mike Chen of Made In Space and colleagues just 3D-printed a ratcheting socket wrench on the International Space Station. “We had overheard ISS Commander Barry Wilmore (who goes by “Butch”) mention over the radio that he needed one,” Chen writes in Medium this week. So they designed one and sent it up.
“The socket wrench we just manufactured is the first object we designed on the ground and sent digitally to space, on the fly,” he adds. It’s a lot faster to send data wirelessly on demand than to wait for a physical object to arrive via rockets, which can take months or even years.
The team started by designing the tool on a computer, then converting it into a 3D-printer-ready format. That’s then sent to NASA, which transmits the wrench to the space station. Once the code is received by the 3D printer, the wrench is manufactured: Plastic filament is heated and extruded layer by layer. The ISS tweeted this photo earlier this week, and you can see more pictures of the very cool wrench-printing process here.
Located on the campus of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Made In Space built the first 3D printer for microgravity, and it was launched to the ISS in September. Within a month, the astronauts 3D-printed their first object: a replacement faceplate for the printer’s casing (pictured below)...
(Excerpt) Read more at iflscience.com ...
Remember, you have to pay the cost of lifting the filament for the 3D printer to orbit. The big saving is that only parts actually needed would have to be printed. No need to have spares of everything "just in case."
Yes.....this is indeed COOL!!!
Ping
You guys were very informative. Ask a question in the right place and get good answers.
One more big first for space travel I guess
building entire ships in space, maybe not even in orbit, is probably a good idea.
or at least a “replicator”
“Where no man has gone before.”
Bigger is pretty much always better in space but getting there is a real problem. Eliminate earth’s gravity well and you’ve just dumped a major fuel expenditure. Plus if you build aircraft carrier sized ships you can put larger crews on them without the need for every man to know every system.
Also there’s the advantage of making hulls feet thick if need be for shielding
bump
yikes.... if that were built in space...
I saw them speak at Autodesk Univerty a few weeks ago. Got a pic with one of the team members. This really is amazing!
Can anyone quickly explain how you can “3D print” movable parts in one piece?
The transporter works by scanning the object/person to the point that all necessary information is obtained to reconstruct that person at another location.
Does it then destroy the “original”?
Why can’t you reconstruct multiple copies based on the information you have?
By not printing the space between the parts.
We can’t get precision tight fitting movable parts, there’s going to be ‘slop’ between them.
OTOH, tighter fitting parts can be independently printed then assembled.
OTOOH, precision parts can be printed slightly over-sized, and touched up with more conventional machining, and then assembled.
Good question. There was a story based on that very problem in Analog some years back.
It seems the company that developed the process sorta glossed over that point and neglected to mention that little detail.
Very expensive instant transport around the world, frequented by politicians, rockstars and captains of industry.
A copy would instantly show up in Hong Kong, London, or Sydney, and the original would be quietly "recycled".
Got kinda messy when someone finally spilled the (human)beans...
One of the Star Trek novels brought up the idea that the soul was not “scannable” and would thereby be destroyed the first time someone went through the transporter.
Hmmm, a transported obama might be an improvement...
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