Off-world manufacturing is a go with space printer
On Friday, the BBC reported on a NASA email exchange with a space station which involved astronauts on the International Space Station using their 3-D printer to make a wrench from instructions sent up in the e-mail. Quite a marker for things to come? An object, after all, was designed on Earth and then transmitted to space for manufacture, indicating such events may have an impact on the economics of supply and demand for space missions. Astronauts would be more self-reliant on future long-duration space missions if on-demand manufacturing were in place, as an alternative to launching the actual items from Earth. NASA in this recent episode was responding to a request by ISS commander Barry Wilmore for a ratcheting socket wrench. Previously, said the BBC, if astronauts requested a specific item they could have waited months for it to be flown up on one of the regular supply flights....