RE: 3D printing, self-replication and space travel
November 5, 2014 at 11:33 pm
(This post was last modified: November 5, 2014 at 11:39 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(November 5, 2014 at 11:19 pm)FifthElement Wrote: Oh, they will be, soon.
NASA is very interested and that's always a good sign
I'm ready to buy one, software wise, just waiting for prices to go down bit more.
Once lots of households have it, new developments are gonna skyrocket.
The "only" problem 3D printing is facing is working with multiple materials at once and the biggest obstacle for self replicating machines will be microchips and circuit boards, one day we will get there
The main advantage of 3D printer is versatility on small scale. This is what is needed on for crowded space craft to which every pound of supply cost $10K to ship.
It becomes less of an advantage if you have to bring the entire resource extraction industry with it to supply the raw material with which to print.
(November 5, 2014 at 11:31 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Using them for space travel sounds loverly, but so far 3D printers are limited in the materials with which they print. They don't turn raw unprocessed dirt into stuff. I can't imagine that anytime soon.
But printing rather than ordering parts is cool. And as a sculpture production tool, it's grand.
The problem is even if they can turn dirt into stuff, most stuff, if made of dirt, won't work.
You need a vast material extraction industry to support making space craft, regardless of how spacecraft is made. This is because spacecraft cares what it is made of.
