ISS to get a replicator (3D Printer)

What do you do when you are up in space, and you really long for that cup of Peruvian coffee, slice of French pastry, or Russian lug nut from 1997 that somehow drifted off into space and left your space toaster inoperable? You replicate it.

Or actually, you print it.

For now the tech is pretty much limited to that third option: the lug nut. Pasty chefts and coffee shops take heart. NASA is looking at flying a 3D printer that will allow those aboard the ISS to create small objects that they need.

This is known by the distinctly sci-fi name of Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication, or EBF3. Essentially it uses an electron beam to melt metal and then the beam and a rotating surface to reform the metal in the shape of the object desired. It allows any part to be fabricated as long as there is a good enough rendering of the part (including layers).

The benefits in space are readily apparent: the costs of getting anything up to orbit are astronomical, the speed replacements can be delivered is very slow, and the quantity of small and difficult parts is staggering.

But there are benefits here on the blue planet. In situ fabrication means that aerospace companies or militaries will be able to manufacture parts when needed at specific locations, instead of a central supplier and then shipping the part. It also reduces the need to machine down huge blocks of aluminum or titanium, where waste has to be recycled at significant cost. In one example this method would make a 300lb titanium aerospace part out of 350lb of titanium instead of the 6,000lb blocks which are currently used.

It cant yet deliver a thin crust slice of New York brick oven pizza to astronauts dehydrated-food weary stomachs, but it can serve up a very helpful helping of parts and pieces which keep the ISS and future spacecraft happily functioning and in orbit.

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