NASA Wants To Test 3-D Printing Aboard ISS 115
coondoggie writes "NASA wants to test out 3-D printing technology onboard the International Space Station to find out if the technology could be used to manufacture parts in space." NASA may not be creating any production parts this way for a long time yet, but they've got to start somewhere.
Debbie Downers (Score:5, Insightful)
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Given the cost of getting stuff up there and the opportunity cost (i.e. other experiments that could be done with the limited time & other resources) I'd say no.
Get it nearly working down here, then tune/polish/tweak it up there.
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Given the risk/reward for the space program, I'd say yes. If it is feasible in zero G to print parts, it would be much easier to ship up the raw materials and then make them there rather than have to ship it from Earth.
If something critical to just one experiment breaks, the cost in lost time waiting until the next trip from Earth rather than building the part immediately to fix it is more than worth it.
Re:Debbie Downers (Score:4, Insightful)
You only get what, half a minute to a couple of minutes of zero G at a time on those. I'll admit to not knowing much about 3D printers, but I'm sure NASA is interested in how it fares when running continuously for a couple of hours in zero G.
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You're missing the point entirely. You don't even know if a 3D printer can work without gravity. You need to test if you can even get the 3D printer to print anything in zero gravity first before you potentially waste millions of dollars sending a it to the ISS.
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An FDM printer (Reprap and the like) can work with gravity pointing in any direction, so there's no reason to assume it can't work without gravity. Powder printing might be less doable. Might have to make the powder wet to get it to stick together.
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You're missing the point entirely. You don't even know if a 3D printer can work without gravity. You need to test if you can even get the 3D printer to print anything in zero gravity first before you potentially waste millions of dollars sending a it to the ISS.
Waste millions?
Employing engineers here on earth to develop technology and iron out the bugs, and send it up on the next flight that is going anyway?
What else would you rather do with those millions?
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Employing engineers here on earth to develop technology and iron out the bugs, and send it up on the next flight that is going anyway? What else would you rather do with those millions?
Spend it on something more useful. Opportunity cost is commonly ignored in discussion of public spending.
For example, if my post were higher profile, for some reason, we'd probably have a replier come on here to claim that because the US squanders billions on military spending, it should squander millions on poor technology development approaches. Such non sequiturs are common when one doesn't understand that there are choices not made as a result of the spending in question.
Re:Debbie Downers (Score:5, Insightful)
Apples and Oranges much?
Pick up a small (commercial unit) drive over to the next launch site and toss it into the cargo.
The supply vehicles were going there anyway.
You don't pay for the whole launch when the thing is small enough to fit on your TV tray.
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Spending $130 million to test something could be tested for $0.25 million is a waste of money.
To pretend that the entire mission would be dedicated to getting a 3D printer into orbit is to be obtuse to the point of ridiculous. Send it up as a cargo module on a regular flight just like many other experimental packages.
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Nope.
ZG Flights last maybe 90 seconds, at which point gravity comes back and destroys the entire situation inside the machine.
You can't tell if your machine will operate in space by testing if for 1000 hours by testing 90 seconds at at time. Even the smallest printed item takes longer than 90 seconds to print.
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Go away son, you bother me.
Let the adults handle the engineering and science, and you keep wringing your hands and whining about dollars wasted and never trying anything new. With your attitude we would never have gotten to space in the first place.
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Poser.
You hold a phd in nothing.
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ALso it's relative. You and everything on them are still under the effects of gravity, you're just falling at the same rate as the craft. The physics of liquids such as would be used by a 3D printer would not be accurately comparable to being on the ISS.
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Hey what's it like not knowing that gravity's effect is inversely proportional to distance?
The degree that gravity will affect a liquid is greater in the plane then it would on the ISS, since the ISS is much farther away.
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The reason why the things on the ISS are weightless, is because everything on the ISS is falling at the same rate as the ISS. It's exactly the same way on a parabolic flight.
You should read this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness
with a focus on this section
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness#A_common_misconception
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Sure, but at the end of the day, the effect of gravity diminishes with distance, something that might work on the plane may not then have "enough" of a gravitational pull to make it work on the ISS.
YOu can see this with fire, when a match is struck on the plane it'll look the same as on the surface, but when done on the ISS, it behaves differently.
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Sure, but at the end of the day, the effect of gravity diminishes with distance, something that might work on the plane may not then have "enough" of a gravitational pull to make it work on the ISS.
You do understand that BOTH the astronauts in the space station and people on the plane are in free fall, right?? They may be accelerating at slightly different rates, but they cannot be aware of the difference in acceleration, since there is no force pushing back in either case... as there would be on the earth's surface for example. Objects can't be aware of the different acceleration either.
YOu can see this with fire, when a match is struck on the plane it'll look the same as on the surface, but when done on the ISS, it behaves differently.
Given that NASA itself does experiments with flames [nasa.gov] with the assumption that they behave similarly on these plane
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You and everything on them are still under the effects of gravity, you're just falling at the same rate as the craft.
Why is this modded up? The astronauts on the space station are also falling at the same rate as the craft. They are just falling with the correct trajectory (i.e., enough horizontal velocity) that the vertical component of their fall takes them around the earth. Please look up the definition of "orbit."
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Re:Debbie Downers (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they should test it. (Score:2)
Then they should test it on [the reduced gravity aircraft]
Yes, those idiots. They should have done that 2 years ago [madeinspace.us]. I bet they feel pretty stupid right now.
as opposed to what (Score:2)
blowing bubbles
growing frut flies
putting spy satellites
missles and bombs
freeze dried ice cream
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Why the 'well it sucks and cant be used for anything yet, but we are going to try it' attitude? ISNT THAT THE POINT OF THE ISS?
Not sure of your point here, they are doing what you (and I) think they should do, right?
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How many experiments have gone up on pure theory alone and never have real world payouts?
It's worth noting both that the answer in the real world, not the ISS, is "not many" and second, when scientists have limited resources with which to do science, they pick and choose which science they do. The only time this argument even occurs is when someone tries to spend more of other peoples' money without providing an actual reason for doing so.
It should be a warning sign when one appeals to the blue sky science approach.
most cheap printers don't care about gravity (Score:4, Interesting)
The common, cheap, FDM printers (the ones that squirt out hot plastic from a nozzle) can print just fine upside down. So obviously they will print fine with zero gravity.
Re:most cheap printers don't care about gravity (Score:5, Insightful)
The common, cheap, FDM printers (the ones that squirt out hot plastic from a nozzle) can print just fine upside down. So obviously they will print fine with zero gravity.
Nope. While they may work upside down, 0g can still be an issue. No convection causes major issues (heat does not rise in 0g). They might have fume or thermal problems. There may also be some issues with bearing, lubrication etc.
Ever wonder what fire is like in 0g without convection? Its very strange, and might be what happens to the printer.
Convection problem solved (Score:1)
The ISS has an atmosphere inside, so heat convection shouldn't be a problem. If necessary, put it in a box with air driven through it to give circulation.
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The ISS has an atmosphere inside, so heat convection shouldn't be a problem.
Wrong. Convection needs gravity. Without it you'd generate a heat bubble.
...If necessary, put it in a box with air driven through it to give circulation.
Right there; however, a simple air blower would do, no need to encapsulate the printer (actually that would be creating problems where none was before.)
Not right - more than one reason for convection (Score:2)
So while there will be SOME heat loss from a hot object in microgravity due to convection it's a lot less than in 1g. The only place where there will be effectively zero heat loss due
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FUMES (Score:2)
Mind the toxic fumes.
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Create a 3d printing process that works in a vacuum, then just eject any unwanted gasses?
3d printing would be a boon if the materials are durable enough. They could likely save weight on replacement parts or at least make stop-gaps.
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On the other hand, radiated heat may be all you need if you can tune your materials well enough.
If you can manage to keep your part exposed to deep space (not illuminated by sunlight), the radiation efficiency metrics are fairly well defined. [nss.org]
Media management might be a problem, but even that might not be so bad if it could be engineered to clump.
And if so, you could probably engineer some really large printers to print in free space (not enclosed in the ISS).
If you can manage the materials well enough you c
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Aren't the three basic heat transfer types: conduction, radiation and convection?
The third doesn't quite work without an encompassing fluid, but the first two do and conduction is the one used to melt the plastic. Solidifying might be an issue, I don't know. Outgassing and boiling might be an even bigger one.
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ISS has isolation containers called "glove boxes" for anything that might fume, or release small parts or dust. And in fact the 3d printer is built into its own glove-box, as is visible in every PR picture of the device on the most routine google search.
It is a great project... (Score:1)
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the gun is not the problem, its what comes out of it
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the gun is not the problem, its what comes out of it
A 3D printer can only make stuff out of plastic, right? Well there are plastic bullets and plastic explosives. I'm not seeing a problem!
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There are already guns at the International Space Station. The Soyuz spaceships have a "survival gun" stored inside. http://www.jamesoberg.com/russiangun_tec.html [jamesoberg.com] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP-82 [wikipedia.org]
Interesting...but (Score:2)
Re:Interesting...but (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the time they needed to repair a satellite and had to custom rig a "flyswatter" (made from a window shade, a vacuum hose and a piece of plastic) to snag a lever on the rotating satellite?
Custom parts will always be needed for unanticipated situations.
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In general it isn't for critical things, apparently the crew occasionally break small parts which are too low priority to be fitted into the next few flights. Things like switch covers and panel corners. Or expose a sharp edge on something after an equipment reshuffle. So they tend to bodge up parts out of scrap and tape. It's thought that a 3d printer would allow these unexpected minor needs to be met.
(The rest is experimentation, and probably crew amusement.)
But I'd be surprised if, before the ISS gets sp
Wrong naming (Score:2)
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Someone seems to have already slapped a 'TM' on that [makerbot.com]...
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Solution: NASA Brand Replication Unit v0.001
The Public will just call it a replicator anyway and the trademark will get watered down like Kleenex when it enters common usage once the technology matures.
NASA Conversation: (Score:1)
Re:NASA Conversation: (Score:4, Funny)
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"Huston, please send up one of these [amazon.com]
Thank you.
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"Uhhhhhhh.... ISS this is Houston. Why exactly are you downloading files named 'femalebodyparts.data'...."
hmm what would be the consequences being caught downloading copyrighted torrents from the iss? i would think you are out of anyones juristiction.
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hmm what would be the consequences being caught downloading copyrighted torrents from the iss?
I can see it already, the new TPB location [thepriatebay.iss]
Its only a model (Score:2)
Its often overlooked that even the best 3d printers can only produce something that is as strong and as as hard as the binding agent, so yes you could make parts out of corn starch or extruded abs its just not going to last very long in use.
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I wonder why folks think they can use sand and plaster molds to make things out of metal? Everyone knows sandcastles don't stand up to wear and tear, and plaster is very brittle. It's just not going to last very long in use.
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cause they melt metal and fill the molds, they are not making a foundry on the ISS and there are cheaper and quicker ways of producing molds with more percision such as machining a one off part and packing sand around it tens of thousands of times.
spending hours to print a single digit inch cubed part that still requires machining (by hand or machine) thats going to last a fraction of that is simply stupid, hince why NASA is nothing more than a houmorous think tank wasting piles of money for no results afte
Hope it won't be a space gun... (Score:3, Funny)
Still, what jurisdiction would care?
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All the Soyuz capsules are equipped with a 9mm Makarov pistol, including the ones docked with the ISS.
(Before 2007 the Russians also flew a triple-barrel combination rifle/shotgun, the TP-82.)
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And a couple of their Salyut stations had a 23mm cannon.
Here's my crazy ridiculous idea for the day... (Score:2)
How about inventing/building a 3-D printer *IN* the ISS that takes advantage of the fact that there is zero gravity?
I mean, the print head could literally be floating and move in nearly any x/y/z direction freely. It would only need to be attached to the spool or whatever supplies the material to it, and a means of propulsion/movement within the space it is "printing" in.
Yeah, it's a silly idea and probably makes no sense. Just daydreaming.
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love the idea. it would be good to experiment with control systems.
earth based 3d printing relies on gravity to stick the shape to the bed and on a static structure to ensure accurcy.
in space its almost totally the control system
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Saw the young man heading this up present this (Score:1)
I was at the BIL conference (at the same time as TED. Yes. And just down the street in Long Beach too) and the young man heading this spoke about the project. It sounds absolutely fascinating. The entire idea is to scale this up and eventually just launch raw materials into space or get them from asteroids or lunar regolith and print tools, structures, or anything else needed.