3D printing could keep the ISS in orbit indefinitely | Hacker News Reader

3D printing could keep the ISS in orbit indefinitely

geek.com

73 pointsukdm39 comments

Hyperbolic headline, but the contents bring up an interesting point: printing space-things in space means you can make them to handle space-stresses and not launch-stresses. That alone could be a huge boon to space-based endeavors.

There are two flaws with this. One is that if something breaks that can't be manufactured with a 3d printer. (Solar panel, processor, gyroscope) The other thing that would be a problem is that you are just shifting it over to what the 3d printer uses as building material. Even if you put a stockpile up there it may still run out.

The idea is to dramatically reduce the cost, not bring the cost to zero. I agree that the idea that we will be able to keep ISS in space infinitely with this technology is doubtful though.

ISS needs some fuel to combat atmospheric drag every once in a while, too.

And what if the 3D printer breaks?! They'll need a 3D printer printer. ;)

There actually are a bunch of 3D printers that print most of their own parts!

Imagine a RepRap with NASA/RKA attention!

This is what I was going to say. They'll need 2 3D printers so if one breaks the other can print replacement parts for it.

"Machines building machines, how perverse".

Well, if we had little robots to run the 3D printers anyway.

I never did get that quote. After all, that's what car factories do...

Oh well, I guess it was a shit movie to begin with.

Yes, it's not a panacea. But it's a heck of a lot easier to store a generic supply of printer feedstock, than to store one (or more) of every part that might conceivably break.

Suppose that you expect 1% of all replaceable parts to break over some projected lifespan. Then the mass of feedstock required would be 1% of the mass of the replacement parts... and would take up less than 1% of the space.

Ah, good point.

I was thinking that if you are bothering to ship up the feedstock why not just ship the spare parts themselves? But you are right, this would reduce the total mass they needed to lift to orbit.

For the second problem, the solution is to recycle the broken part back into the building material. This problem is being worked on by some in the RepRap community (sorry, no time to look up the link).

https://reprapdelft.wordpress.com/

Aren't all the current 3D printers are dependent on gravity? Or is the hot material sticky enough?

Wouldn't mounting the printer outward from the center axis of a rotating drum solve this issue?

Not all 3D printers use hot sticky material. And those that do usually have some kind of method to push the material out with pressure. It's not a gravity drop.

Yeah, but it assumes the existence of gravity, which affects the size and shape of the plastic as it dries.

Slightly, and less and less as you get finer and finer output and cohesion takes over.

nope, repraps (and presumably all similar printers) can print in any orientation. see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euC2KZO37_Q

The article says it's an extrusion printer, so gravity isn't needed. Current machines would probably work without further modification (e.g. as others have noted, the RepRap can print upside down).

In terms of what parts can be made, multi-material machines are commercially available[1] that allow a selective distribution of material properties throughout the printed object. This gives the ability to print quite advanced objects, not just dumb plastic parts. Add to that the developing abilities to print electrical circuitry, and you'e approaching a very useful ability and source of replacements.

[1] http://www.objet.com/3D-Printer/Objet_Connex_Family/

Somehow no one seems to have mentioned food (at least source material for the printers has been mentioned).

So yes, resupply flights will still be required because for now at least, the operators of the printers and the actors who take their results and replace parts of the space station and then do science on the space station still need to be fed in food produce on earth.

This will help but I don't think it warrants the title's conclusion or the opening paragraph that we can so do away with constant resupply flights to ISS

3D printing food: http://www.good.is/post/the-food-printer-how-mit-is-taking-t...

The things that fail on the space station are not the kinds of things replaceable with a 3D printer.

Surely the kinds of things that a 3D printer can print don't have zero failure rates on the space station.

Things that fail are things with movable parts. On the space station, things with movable parts are either a) require materials 3D printers don't work with, b) precision engineered and manufactured with exacting tolerance, or c) both.

Are you saying that we can build an air lock, a solar panel, an air filtration system, or a robotic arm with a 3D printer? Because those are the sorts of things that determine the lifetime of the ISS.

I am saying nothing of the sort. I'm not defending the sensationalist headline.

All I'm saying is that if an astronaut bumps into a plastic clip or something, why not print off a new one? Or maybe the astronaut just wants a new clip? 3d printers can be small as hell, it seems like something that could be very useful to have up there.

> Are you saying that we can build an air lock, a solar panel, an air filtration system, or a robotic arm with a 3D printer?

Sure, why not?

Some of them might have to be designed differently, but I don't recall anybody from NASA ever saying "it's impossible to design X in any other way".

All of those things enumerated depend on material properties, strengths, or tolerances that cannot be achieved with 3D printed plastic. Nobody is saying "it's impossible to design X in any other way", but rather we (I work for NASA) are saying that such objects make use of materials with specific properties, materials which cannot (yet) be used in 3D printers.

So here we have a NASA employee saying "we can't do it because the technology isn't already there" instead of "let's make this work". What a perfect example of the past 30 years of the US space program.

By the way, being in space can be a significant advantage for 3d printers printing metallic components. Not that you care, since you can't buy it off the shelf yet, and anything that hasn't been done can't be done.

Is the ISS really worth keeping in orbit even in the short term?

As far as international budgets go, it costs a pittance.

It's worth keeping around for what it's costing us if only so that fathers can point to a moving dot in the sky and say to their kids, "There are people on that."

Why not divert all of that funding, even if it is not much, to useful space projects instead?

I'd be ok with that, provided they have similar or greater inspiration potential. Inspiration is like an investment, do it right and with any luck when all babyboomers die and are replaced you'll receive much more funding. For the same reason, that new project should be similarly international. I'd advocate defunding the ISS in a heartbeat if there was another project that I felt met those qualifications.

However, without looking at the numbers, I fear that the cost of running the ISS would only pay for a fraction of the cost of launching a new project. So of course in either case you'll need to find new funding.

The ISS budget for 2012 appears to be just under $3 billion. This could fund quite a few robotic missions.

If you can squeeze that kind of inspiration and international cooperation out of a bunch of robotic missions, then great.

Edit:

Then again, this is what Cassini cost:

"Cost of mission: $1.422 billion pre-launch development; $710 million mission operations; $54 million tracking; $422 million launch vehicle; $500 million ESA; $160 million ASI; total about $3.27 billion, of which U.S. contribution is $2.6 billion and European partners' contribution $660 million"

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/quickfacts/

So you could get just less than one funded Cassini a year for what we spend on the ISS. You would still need to find additional funding.

It is useful, there are a lot of science projects going on as well as studying the astronauts themselves to learn more about how people can survive for long periods without gravity. Sure robotic missions are great for exploration but I'd imagine for a lot of experiments going on on the ISS having a human there to make changes would dramatically cut the cost of having to send up fully automated experiments.

This claim is often made, but it seems rather dubious.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/21/space-shuttle-...

What happens when the 3d printer breaks?

I know it's not the same but this is like a primitive replicator. Star Trek invented the future ;p

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