ISS's 3-D Printer Creates Its First Object In Space 69
An anonymous reader writes: NASA reports that the 3-D printer now installed on the International Space Station has finally finished its first creation. After it was installed on November 17th and calibrated over the next week, ground control sent it instructions yesterday to build a faceplate for the extruder's own casing. The process was mostly a success. "[Astronaut Butch Wilmore] Wilmore removed the part from the printer and inspected it. Part adhesion on the tray was stronger than anticipated, which could mean layer bonding is different in microgravity, a question the team will investigate as future parts are printed. Wilmore installed a new print tray, and the ground team sent a command to fine-tune the printer alignment and printed a third calibration coupon. When Wilmore removes the calibration coupon, the ground team will be able to command the printer to make a second object. The ground team makes precise adjustments before every print, and the results from this first print are contributing to a better understanding about the parameters to use when 3-D printing on the space station."
Next step - Semiconductors (Score:5, Interesting)
Things will start to get interesting when astronauts can create semiconductors in in space. I believe there are some demonstration technologies using ink-jet printers.
I would imagine it will be a long time before we can see the amazingly tiny devices that can be built on Earth, but I would expect that replacement electronics for communications and actuator drivers should be achievable in fairly short order. I would guess that replacement solar panel segments and power supply components (including batteries) would be on the menu as well.
myke
Re:Next step - Semiconductors (Score:5, Insightful)
think of the cheese spacer from the pizza box scenario as the eggheads are prototyping a solution.
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I just thought, what a great game and movie idea...
Re: Next step - Semiconductors (Score:1)
Re:Next step - Semiconductors (Score:5, Insightful)
I look at it along similar lines to Biosphere II down near Tucson, Arizona. It was the first major attempt to build a self-sufficient (within the scope of allowing for the ambient conditions in the local climate to influence heat) habitat that was supposed to be independent of outside assistance. It failed, but why it failed is important and can be learned from. Unfortunately I don't think that those lessons are being applied to the original facility, so we're not continuing to learn in ways that we should, but hopefully all of the studies of what happened will inform future scientists and engineers of the pitfalls in their plans and designs.
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I've always wondered why they didn't try again with another crew, once they figured out the cement thing. (Or if they did, why I never heard about it.)
Re:Next step - Semiconductors (Score:5, Interesting)
They did. But first off, to correct the GP: Concrete does not release CO2. It absorbs CO2 (slowly taking back the carbon that was released during the cement's creation). So this messed up their balance equation. Metabolism was supposed to consume O2 and make CO2, while photosynthesis was supposed to consume CO2 and make O2. But with the concrete locking up the CO2, the output of metabolism was being locked up and not being converted back to O2, so the O2 levels declined.
It's a simple oversight, but one that we're very lucky was made on Earth and not on, say, Mars. More foresight could have caught it, but there's always something that slips through the cracks. A number of other issues showed themselves, such as unexpected condensation adding rain to areas supposed to be rainless, less light than anticipated making it into the habitat, certain inspect species proving incompatible with the environment while others proving to be pests, so and so forth. They also had big problems with wild fluctuations in CO2 by time of day and season - they didn't have a massive amount of atmosphere to buffer it, so levels collapsed during the day and shot up at night. A lot of people complained that the project wasn't focused enough on the science, but I think they learned an awful lot of important things that could prove critical if ever trying to grow crops on another planet.
(The psychological aspects and how the crew split into two bitterly divided factions is also a real cautionary tale)
So anyway: after the first Biosphere 2 experiment was terminated, they sealed the concrete and started another one. But the second experiment was more doomed by politics than anything else. The on-site management was foreceably evicted by federal marshals. Former biosphere members broke into the facility so that the people inside could know what was going on outside (in the process, ruining the sealed environment). And then a couple months later the management company was dissolved. Altogether the second mission lasted less than half a year. It was a total disaster.
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There was another problem with Biosphere 2: use of window glass, rather than quartz glass, to let sunlight into the structure. Even in Arizona, window glass does not let enough UV through for adequate photosynthesis. But just as the ISS allows us to find out what happens to the human body in long periods of microgravity, Biosphere was our first test of social interactions on a long voyage in isolation.
Lessons learned: watch that CO2-absorbing concrete and UV-absorbing glass, and don't staff with whiny prima
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The only solution that I see is to recruit people that will be polyamorous without developing excessive jealousy.
"I must say, that is an astonishingly good idea you have, Doctor!"
-- Russian Ambassador to Dr. Strangelove
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But if you don't have a space station, it won't need knobs. Point is, it's a circular argument,
So the ISS is a $150billion dollar knob needing and breaking machine designed to prop up the knob industry?
Or the more likely scenario is that the ISS does more than just print knobs for itself and has a purpose outside 3D printing. Maybe someone closer to the project can tell us if the USA and Russia worked together to spend hundreds of billions of dollars for this single purpose device as the is no information about what else the ISS does available. [wikipedia.org]
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What world do you live in where mine shafts allow objects to fall for hours, days, weeks, months, or years at a time?
And FYI, this "weak force" is the reason your muscles aren't atrophied and you're stuck to this ball orbiting the sun. It matters.
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I think you don't know what welfare is. The space program(s) are government money being spent on engineers and experts in all sorts of fields who work hard and come up with creative solutions to unusual problems. This gets them experience. It also benefits humanity as a whole because those engineers then go on to use their experience in other things they do in life.
Welfare is paying lazy people to sit around and continue being lazy.
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And another, when that one breaks, which it will. Still, no problem - just print another another one...
Might as well take a tub of Play-Doh.
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But the same troll was likely used about GPS. Fuck cost effective. Banks create 10 times more money than governments. Fund space at zero cost through the Fed because it is a good idea, in the General Welfare. Why would creating money for space exploration cause inflation?
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But the same troll was likely used about GPS. Fuck cost effective. Banks create 10 times more money than governments. Fund space at zero cost through the Fed because it is a good idea, in the General Welfare. Why would creating money for space exploration cause inflation?
Btw Europe texted, they want their economic paradigms back
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Today you need to launch a spool of ABS plastic, but one spool is less mass than a spare of every possible part that can break. It reduces spares inventory. This is also a very small first step towards making everything you need in orbit. ABS plastic is mostly Carbon and Hydrogen, which are both present in Chondrite type asteroids. The remainder is Nitrogen, which can be scoop-mined from the upper atmosphere. Combined you have all the ingredients for the plastic. You need other stuff in larger quantit
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How is it cost effective to put up an ISS, train and send astronauts, tweak and twiddle a free fall 3D printer, so you can save 5$ on a part you can buy at Digikey?
Because while the part might be cheap from Digikey, the delivery charge is a killer. And the package tends to float away when the delivery guy leaves it beside the airlock.
What is it about space that shuts off critical thinking?
Usually nothing. Your symptoms seem to be unique.
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Re:Next step - Semiconductors (Score:5, Funny)
Close, but your syllable count is a bit off. Something like this would work:
fuck ink jet printers
fuck all those fucking printers
i fucking hate them
Technically, though, you're supposed to have a connection with nature for it to be proper haiku. So maybe something more like
ink jet printer rests
at the bottom of the bog
piece of shit printer
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Close, but your syllable count is a bit off. Something like this would work:
fuck ink jet printers
fuck all those fucking printers
i fucking hate them
Technically, though, you're supposed to have a connection with nature for it to be proper haiku. So maybe something more like
ink jet printer rests
at the bottom of the bog
piece of shit printer
Burma Shave
FTFY
Re:Next step - More materials (Score:2)
Things will start to get interesting when astronauts can create semiconductors in in space
Things will also get even more interesting when the full range of 3D printing materials can be used in microgravity. From ceramics to metals, polymers of various types... it will soon become possible to make virtually anything in space.
When things really start to get interesting is when we can also create these 3D printing materials in space, from in-situ space resources like asteroids and lunar surface mines. When we can do the whole prociss up there, without needing to "up-mass" anything from Earth, that
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You might do better to ask why yours seems to pretend it couldn't happen.
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You still have to "up-mass" the raw materials.
For now, yes. That's why I said the real revolution would be learning how to harvest raw materials from space. And it won't take nearly as long as you seem to think.
I'll be surprised if it's more than five years before the first privately owned fuel depot begins operating in LEO. And I'll only be slightly less surprised if it takes more than ten years for the first lunar-mined fuel to be delivered to that depot.
Maybe you hadn't heard, but there are people being paid to work out how to do all these things, a
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We'll need the fuel depots in any scenario, simply because LEO is a more versatile launch/assembly venue, capable of handling much larger missions than anything that could be launched (with or without fuel) from Earth.
And don't assume that mining the moon will be "insanely" expensive until you've seen the methods that are being worked on right now. Bottom line, the cost of the fuel itself will be just a tiny fraction of the total cost to deliver it on orbit. And as it turns out, there's a significant advant
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> Maybe you hadn't heard, but there are people being paid to work out how to do all these things,
Yup, I'm one of them. I'm working on the idea of a "Seed Factory" ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/S... [wikibooks.org] ), which is a starter kit of machines which you expand by making parts for more machines. A 3D printer is likely to be part of the starter kit, but you need several others. The engineering R&D questions are what machines should be in the starter kit, what is the optimal growth path, and how do those va
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we're not too close to 'printing' electronics on earth either. printing a chip takes a fab now.
replacement brackets and such though, sure, today. you can also print circuit boards today(with special inks that form into metal layer when mixed.. google cartesian co). but circuit boards are quite far from printing semiconductor electronics as such. solar panels too. power supply components are mostly coiled coppers and chips. making good enough caps on iss in short order.. maybe not.
i would expect them to be d
Coupon? (Score:2)
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In this context, they're talking about a test sample. Perhaps the summary should have been edited to say so in plainer English.
it has to be said (Score:2)
Slightly wrong ... (Score:2)
After it was installed on November 17th and calibrated over the next week,
...
Wilmore installed a new print tray, and the ground team sent a command to fine-tune the printer alignment and printed a third calibration coupon.
An "alignment coupon" is printed before each job. So, the first TWO objects printed by a 3d printer were "alignment coupons".
FTFA:
installed the printer on Nov. 17 and conducted the first calibration test print. Based on the test print results, the ground control team sent commands to realign the printer and printed a second calibration test on Nov. 20. These tests verified that the printer was ready for manufacturing operations. On Nov. 24, ground controllers sent the printer the command to make the first printed part: a faceplate of the extruder’s casing. This demonstrated that the printer can make replacement parts for itself
AWESOME (Score:1)
Next step... (Score:1)
The process was mostly a success. (Score:1)
Supid nucularphopic yoorpan's. Should've used an RTG.
I have a huge beard and a shaved head, I'm totally rad!
ISIS have a 3D printer?! (Score:1)