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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-much-would-you-pay-for-the-first-coin-minted-in-space? dept.

NBC News is reporting in an article, with photos:

After a series of calibration tests, the first 3-D printer to fly to outer space has manufactured its first potentially useful object on the International Space Station: a replacement faceplate for its print head casing. [...]

The 9.5-inch-wide contraption was delivered to the space station by a robotic SpaceX Dragon cargo ship in September, and NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore set it up inside the station's experimental glovebox a week ago.

Since then, the crew has been printing out plastic test patterns, or "coupons," to check how the machine works in zero gravity. "Everything worked exactly as planned, maybe a little better than planned," Kemmer told NBC News. He said only two calibration passes were needed in advance of the first honest-to-goodness print job, which finished up at 4:28 p.m. ET Monday and was pulled out of the box early Tuesday.

The article points out the real value of a 3-D printer in space:

In space, astronauts may someday count on 3-D printers to make tools or spare parts from standard-issue feedstock, rather than having to rely on a stockpile of hardware flown up from Earth at a cost of $10,000 a pound. That capability will be particularly important for trips to Mars — because in deep space, it's hard to find a hardware store.

I take exception to the claim, however, that this first 3-D printed part is "it's really the first object truly manufactured off planet Earth" as claimed in the article. Would not the jury-rigged CO2 scrubbers made by the Apollo 13 astronauts be the first?

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bill Evans on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:36AM

    by Bill Evans (1094) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:36AM (#120221) Homepage

    The printer making a spare part, a component of itself, reminds me of an old Broom Hilda strip.

    Gaylord sees Broom Hilda wearing safety goggles and working on some power tools.

    "What's this?"

    "My lathe and drill press."

    "Oh. What are you making?"

    "Spare parts for my lathe and drill press."

    Gaylord walks away, his head spinning, saying to himself, "Now THAT's leisure time."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 26 2014, @11:47AM (#120223)

    3=D printer feedstock still needs to be flown up at a cost of $10,000 per pound. Sorry now, space jacks, mass ain't free, it has to cum from somewhere. 3=D~~

    • (Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:20PM

      by francois.barbier (651) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:20PM (#120229)

      Just fly the material into LEO once, then print when needed.
      Compare that to waiting for a replacement piece to be shipped from earth...
      I know if my life is at stake, I'll take the first option and not wait a week or two !

      • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:31PM

        by Dunbal (3515) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:31PM (#120231)

        "Compare that to waiting for a replacement piece to be shipped from earth..."

        And the small possibility it will blow up on launch, meaning you'd have to wait ANOTHER launch cycle...

      • (Score: 2) by DrMag on Wednesday November 26 2014, @07:01PM

        by DrMag (1860) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @07:01PM (#120350)

        More importantly, launching a reel of feedstock is much cheaper than flying a part, because the feedstock reel doesn't have to go through some of the difficult (and costly) designing and testing procedures that actual parts do to survive the crazy vibrations you get from rockets. When you add in the possibility of easily extruding your own filaments, you can just lob up bags of plastic (or whatever) pellets, which could even be done as cheap ballast for balancing payloads in every launch. Then the launch cost becomes essentially free.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:23PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:23PM (#120230)

      The argument is that you can keep a stockpile of plastic onsite and print a part in perhaps hours, rather than waiting weeks or months until there's spare in the next shipment.

      Its a latency thing not an average bandwidth or payload size thing. The journalist didn't get that.

    • (Score: 2) by Bytram on Wednesday November 26 2014, @01:47PM

      by Bytram (4043) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @01:47PM (#120259) Journal
      So,if I want to have a spare X (3 pounds), a spare Y (5 pounds)n and a spare Z (5 pounds) and a spare... I don't need to have every single one of them shipped up to the station. I only need some x amount of feedstock that I can use to construct the desired part at time of need. I see a net weight savings being quite possible with this.
    • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday November 26 2014, @02:28PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @02:28PM (#120267)

      True, but it sure is a hell of a lot cheaper to print a part at a slightly inflated cost due to waste than it is to launch an entire rocket for an emergency component when there is a a problem.

      And I know what you are thinking "they can easily throw it on to the next launch". Two problems here. The cargo manifests for resupply launches are decided months in advance, you can't easily toss something on at the last minute. And two: The last Antares launch went boom. What happens when it had that emergency part, wait another couple months?

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday November 26 2014, @07:44PM

      by morgauxo (2082) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @07:44PM (#120361)

      It doesn't have to print out of nothing! Is that ignorance or a strawman?

      You can't say for certain ahead of time exactly how many of which spare parts you will need and what you will not. If you could you would just replace them with more robust versions before launch wouldn't you? Traditionally you bring as many spares of each item that you might possibly need knowing that much of this will go unused. Or.. you take a chance with the astronauts' lives and hope that something just doesn't break.

      Hopefully you can assume that not every possible part will break! So, with 3d printing, instead of hedging your bets by taking spares of a huge variety of items you just bring enough material to print the mass of items that you are likely to actually need, plus a little for a safety margin.

      That is how 3d printing your replacement parts can make space travel better.

  • (Score: 1) by zugedneb on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:04PM

    by zugedneb (4556) on Wednesday November 26 2014, @12:04PM (#120225)

    had they made a net lingerie, the world would be a happier place now =)

    --
    old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
  • (Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:14AM

    by dx3bydt3 (82) on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:14AM (#120489)

    Applications for this might not just be replacement parts. The crew of the ISS spend a great deal of time overseeing and conducting scientific experiments. The ability to print parts could allow modifications or fixes for unforeseen problems, or for new experimental apparatus. The 3d printing itself could be a kind of experiment, there are probably things you can do with a 3d printer in micro-gravity that would never work on Earth.