3D Printing & Space: Part 1 - An Interplanetary Species

3D Printing & Space: Part 1 - An Interplanetary Species

Voyager 1 has left the solar system. An amazing feat considering it set off from Earth shortly after Elvis left the building for the final time. The technology of species Homo Sapien Sapien can now be considered of interplanetary capacity. Let us look at the various applications of the exciting set of technologies that fall under the umbrella term of 3D printing in the context of this exciting and fascinating era in human history...
By the end of this article we will be looking at mankind’s most forward looking technologies, such as The Quantum Vacuum Plasma thruster (‘Q-thruster’) which utilizes quantum vacuum fluctuations as its propellant, and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) to predict the propellant’s behaviour. On the way there, we will examine the profit making potential of asteroid capture, look at space 3D printing projects such as Made In Space, Deep Space Industries and NASA’s Asteroid Capture project – the head of which team, I am graced to say, chats with myself online, I enjoy dropping a very busy man a line on the latest relevant developments of 3DP to their projects.

If you are a maker or small 3D printing business owner pondering the potentials of replicating the famedNASA purchase of MakerBot 3D printers, the world’s most advanced technological advancement agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (S.B.I.R.) and Small Business Technology Transfer (S.T.T.R.) programs are worth looking in to.


Voyager 1: Boldly Going Where No Man-Made Object Has Gone Before [Image Credit: NASA]

Not that, in this authors opinion, MakerBot is the best of the bunch in this authors opinion. I believe that currently Zmorph co.’s high flexible multiple-tooling Zmorph, AIO Robotics‘ combo Zeus, ZeePro’s Zim, Type A-Machines’ Series 1 are currently the best options… but, we will doubtless see what the patent-laden sector monolith, Stratasys’, brings forth following its acquisition of MakerBot, in competition with corporate rival 3D System’s triple colour Cube X.

Analysis bares witness to the strategic element of the ‘Made In America’ opensource-hardware-to-patented-hardware and market potential regarding DARPA’s Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) program, the financing of 3D printing for schools in the US: Catalysation in education > applicability in Science Technology Engineering and Manufacturing (S.T.E.M.) based work-force catalysation of technological progress > inter-relational aspects regarding U.S. geo-strategy.

USA IN 2013-2023 [Image Credit: Forbes]

Voyager

Voyager 1, NASA’s first interplanetary, and now interstellar, probe has achieved this feat with technology including an 8-track tape recorder and computers operating with just 1/240,000 the memory of a ‘low spec’ iPhone. The probe departed Earth the year audiences first watched a certain movie’s opening sequence that included a star-ship so large it took 13 seconds to enter the frame in full.

It’s worth noting that the probe has been classified as having left the solar system before – Voyager 1 has been detecting the interstellar magnetic field since July 27, 2012 – but today represents the first bold step with certitude of liberation from our solar system, a mere 18,800,000,000 km (11.7 billion miles or 125 Astronomical Units) from the now distant star that we call ‘The Sun.’

Karl Maxly, of Engineering.com, whose articles I tend to respect, posits an interesting angle at the time of writing regarding 3D printing, von Neumann probes and the One Hundred Year Star Ship project today. It is logical: although I would speculate that this approach merely represents a number of the stronger paths regarding interstellar space travel.

One base applicability of the concept is to send self-replicating 3D printing nano-probes to other world’s to construct star-ships that contain resources mined from that world by other constructs of the probes, for the star-ship to then ship back to the home-world.

Actual projects using nano-sats are in place, such as project Tin Tin: an interstellar nano-sat mission to Alpha Centauri.

To quote:

‘Project Tin Tin is an effort to lay the foundations for cost-effective technology and engineering validation Cube-at missions, leading up to the first interstellar precursor mission to Alpha Centauri. The objective of Project Tin Tin is to motivate interstellar exploration by pushing the envelope of what is currently possible for deep space exploration.

The Project Tin Tin research team aims to design, model and pursue the launch of a set of nano-sat-sized spacecraft, or “Tins”, with technical and scientifically relevant objectives starting as early as 2015.

The mission objectives include:

1) Assessing current capabilities for near future interstellar precursor nano-sat missions;

2) The incremental space validation of enabling technologies in propulsion, power, communications, structures, fabrication, telemetry and sensors; and

3) To launch the first interstellar spacecraft on route to Alpha Centauri, by the end of the decade.’

The reader may well, most understandably, find that upon the realization mankind is on the brink of genuinely considering terminology such as ‘home-world’ as a pragmatic, technological and indeed industrial, reference takes a while to rationally and emotionally accept.

Next, let us look at specific applications of 3D printing of nanosats, the International Space Station, forthcoming also is an analysis of aerospace – and how 3D Systems (DDD) and Stratasys (SSYS) are contributing, as well as examining how capturing an asteroid could be a catalyst for global economic and ecological maintenance. For example, asteroid 1997 RT, which has an estimated net worth of USD$6,210,000,000,000.

Nano-sized probes have the fundamental benefit of being more energy-, material- and thus cost-efficient to launch, such as the below design for a nano-sat and a self-replicating nano-robe:

A Modern Nano-Satellite [Image Credit: http://ow.ly/oXdUE]

Sending self-replicating nano-probes to other worlds to mine the resources to reproduce, until the swarm capacity is sufficient to mine and build larger mining machines, in a cycle of expansion unto the point of a mining facility, and space-craft to return the mined resources, is almost possible now…

Two Photon Polymerization

Fabrication at nano-level is more technologically complex to achieve, but given that Two Photon Polymerization (2PP) facilitates the arrangement of fundamental particles, the main obstacles of either creating artificial gravity via centrifugal force (speed of rotation regarding kinetics affect upon the materials and, to an extend mechanics of the laser would be one of the problems here) or utilizing recent Higg’s Boson discoveries and their inter-relatedness with dark matter / energy is not, potentially, completely out of the question. Whilst not utilising the teleportation of fundamental particles to create new structural arrangements akin to the replicators of Star Trek fame, the plausibility of mankind accomplishing methodologies to create self-replicating star-ships, albeit not at nano-level, are not wholly alien.

2PP selectively solidifies successive layers of a photopolymer resin at a resolution as refined as 100-200 nanometers. Put another way, Standard Stereolithography currently accomplishes a still-amazing and utterly applicable resolution of 0.025mm in X / Y planes, and 0.05mm in the Z. 2PP can accomplish resolutions as fundamentally small as 0.0001mm.

For now, 3D printing in space is confined by the variable of gravity, which affects the process in a list of ways will indulge the newcomer in another time, but, for now 3D printing is to be experimented with in the International Space Station’s Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) next June.

The Microgravity Science Glovebox is located in the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Columbus laboratory module. Developed by ESA and managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), the MSG was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in June, 2002.

The International Space Station’s Micro Gravity Glovebox [IMAGE CREDIT: NASA]

The 3D printer in question, created by Made In Space, a U.S. company concentrating on exactly the problems were are here discussing, kickstarted by the Singularity University – the world’s foremost base of education for forwarding technological progress.

Made In Space

According to Made In Space, the organization that is working NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre, more than 30% of the spare parts currently aboard the ISS can be manufactured with their advanced, custom 3D printers – as covered earlier in the year here.

To quote Singularity University’s Made In Space Profile:

‘MADE IN SPACE, INC., a venture from SU’s 2010 Graduate Studies Program, is dedicated to enabling additive manufacturing in space. MADE IN SPACE has partnered with NASA to send customized 3D printers to the International Space Station, with the first printer scheduled to arrive in the latter half of 2014. Their Unique Innovation Lab has completed over 20,000 hours of printer testing, including multiple rounds of microgravity test flights. The advantages of 3D printing include limited material waste, the ability to build complex geometries, immediate production time and minimal human involvement. MADE IN SPACE hopes to revolutionize the way we currently look at space exploration, commercialization and mission design.’

The Space-bound 3DP with the Made In Space team [IMAGE CREDIT: Made In Space]

The Microgravity Science Glovebox offers an enclosed 255-liter (9 cubic foot) work area accessible to the crew through glove ports and to ground-based scientists through real-time data links and video. The sealed work area is held at negative pressure, allowing the crew to manipulate experiment hardware and samples without the danger of parts, particulates, fluids, or gasses escaping into the open laboratory module.

I could further postulate and speculate regarding ways to develop this technology, but that is for my work elsewhere. For now, the awesome projects of companies such as Deep Space Industries, Planetary Resources and more show premise and promise to deliver extra-terrestrial resources to Earth to further push the potential Gross Domestic Produce of this world, whilst Mars One, and the projects of NASA, the ESA, the space programs of China, India, Russia, and more, continue to push the boundaries regrading the potentials of human civilisations on other worlds.

Leaving Earth, and leaving a lasting impression… [IMAGE CREDIT: Deep Space Industries]

Whichever methodology is utilized to facilitate the mining of resources from outer space, the destination is of course equally important. Other worlds are inevitably the long term key to resources and new civilizations: whether the Moon, Mars, Phobos, Ceres, Europa, Titan – although ‘local’ asteroids are, inevitably, of the greatest potential worth: Bagging asteroid 1997 RT for it’s resources, for example, would net the company that achieved it an estimated profit of USD$6,210,000,000,000…



As the nature of this report is regarding the interstellar, an example of where a further human home-world outside of this solar system is an interesting point of reference: the cosy potentially life-supporting Kepler-26e pushes the limits of von Neumann probes however, as the Kepler-26 system is some 2,700 light-years from Earth, until self-replicating nano-probes can bend space-time, other solar systems are beyond their possibility. 

For a pop-culture example, the remake of The Day The World Stood Still, provides a sci-fi example, wherein the nano-probes are used destructively, by more advanced intelligences, to prevent mankind from destroying the rest of the Earth’s biomass by ecocide.

The Earth’s inter-related ‘spheres’ [Image Credit: ESA]

Dispute climate change all you wish: but we are, irrefutably, currently in the midst of the fifth, and fastest, mass extinction event in the Earth’s history. The difference from the previous four, other than the shear speed of this biomass extinction event, is that this time round, it is not asteroids wiping out dinosaurs or super-volcano events, this time, a life-form is responsible, by it’s destruction of the habit of other species, consumption of the biomass directly, and so on. That species, needless to say, is Homo Sapien Sapien.

There is a minor irony that mining asteroids may help prevent this mass extinction progressing deep into the 21st century towards a world where the majority of species that prosper are the ones that are manufactured by our oft over-rated intelligence.

Mankind is undoubtedly an amazing species, or, to me more accurate: set of sub-species – but living in denial of the mass extinction event that we are so blatantly causing is an indication that not all of those human sub-species have the genetic capacity to adapt to the reality of an empirical culture; a culture where acceptance that our species fate is intertwined with that of the rest of the biomass, and the world that we share with that biomass. Nature and nurture are not sole causes of our behaviour, epigenetics, and, increasingly, optogenetics, also play a vital role in this hyper-complex milieu.



Is it time for mankind to look beyond the trends of the past, to the means we possess in the present, to evolve the potential of the trends of the future? An evolution of trends in the permeable classifications of genes, memes, technology (techemes?) and phenological relationship with ecology (phemes?).

Now, let us look at the effort of individual institutions and corporations in more detail, beginning with an over view of NASA, which will continue in more depth in the next part of this series.

NASA

“We’re not driving the additive manufacturing train, industry is, but NASA has the ability to get on-board to leverage it for our unique needs.” So said Ted Swanson recently, who is the assistant chief for technology for the Mechanical Systems Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD and NASA’s central point-of-contact for additive manufacturing, which is led by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

NASA is part of the US government’s synergistic investments in additive manufacturing (3D printing) that includes: the U.S. Air Force; U.S. Department of Energy (DOE); National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); and National Science Foundation (NSF), catalysed by America Makes (formerly the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute), which is a public-private partnership created to drive 3D printing into into mainstream US manufacturing.

America Makes in turn is a part of the U.S. National Manufacturing Initiative, a strategic project that aims to renew manufacturing as a key core sector in the world’s current largest single economy: An economy that already lies slightly behind the European Union and is forecast to be surpassed by the Peoples Republic of China this decade. Revitalising manufacturing in the USA has arguably never been so critical for the world’s most powerful Nation State.

Matt Showalter, who is overseeing Goddard’s disparate 3D printing efforts stated: “This effort really goes beyond one centre. It’s in the national interest to collaborate with other institutions. This is a powerful tool and we need to look at how we can implement it. For us, it’s a team effort.”

First 3D-printed component by Goddard flown: Polyetherketoneketone battery case

LaNetra Tate, the advanced-manufacturing principal investigator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development Program recently explained: “NASA’s work with additive manufacturing should enable us to be smart buyers and help us save time, expense and mass. With additive manufacturing, we have an opportunity to push the envelope on how this technology might be used in zero gravity — how we might ultimately manufacture in space.”

As this author is certainly no fan of warfare, the scientific endeavour of NASA presents a complementary challenge to pure military expenditure as a catalyst for accelerating technological progression. This adds further pertinence to NASA’s interest in 3D printing, even beyond the phenomenal potential of mankind’s future in space as our species liberates itself from our ecologically strained home world and ventures boldly into the final frontier.

The majority of NASA centres have begun applying additive manufacturing to a variety of applications that are pertinent to their areas of world-leading expertise.

For example a team at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) has developed a 3D printing process called the Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication (EBF3).

Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication

Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication Additive Manufacturing Device [Image Credit: SOURCE]

EBF3 uses an electron-beam gun, a dual-wire feed and computer controls to remotely manufacture metallic structures for building parts or tools in a remarkably short time — just hours, in fact. This additive manufacturing process was primarily developed and engineered by Karen Taminger, a material research engineer for NASA LaRC. NASA-patented, EBF3 is a process designed to build complex, near-net-shape parts requiring substantially less raw material and finish machining than traditional manufacturing (or other AM) methods.

There is a history of over a decade of successful collaboration with other NASA centres, Federal agencies and the US aerospace industry. EBF3 is a process by which NASA plans to build metal parts in zero gravity environments. The efficiencies of the electron beam and the feedstock make EBF3 attractive for in-space use. EBF3 works in a vacuum chamber, where an electron beam is focused on a constantly feeding source of metal, which is melted and then applied — one layer at a time — on top of a rotating surface until the part is complete. EBF3 can process two different sources of metal feed stock at the same time, either by mixing them together into a unique alloy or embedding one material inside another.

3D Printing Components

NASA’s Glenn Research Centre in Cleveland recently collaborated with Aerojet Rocketdyne of West Palm Beach, FL, to fabricate and successfully test an engine injector for the RL-10 rocket. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, has used 3D printing to create components for the J-2X and RS-25 (also known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine) liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine. Both are planned for use on NASA’s Space Launch System, the successor to the space shuttle that we all know and miss so dearly.

The Marshall Space flight center also is working with Made In Space, a Silicon Valley start-up, to develop a 3D printer that astronauts will use on the International Space Station later this year. As previously covered, astronauts will create tools and replacement parts they need to operate in space, eliminating the need for transport. It’s a little like Star Trek, only light years away from the fictional technology, back in the realm of reality, today: the logistical principle however is indeed analogous to the Star Trek Replicator.

The next installment in this series will be cover Moon-bases, Mars-bases and the potential of 3D printing and bio-printing for terra-forming. I have a few contacts at NASA who I will be approaching for interviews in the near future too, so keep your eye’s peeled on this space to keep your finger on the pulse of the excitement!

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