NASA emails spanner to the ISS Space Station
December 20, 2014 9:41 AM   Subscribe

"Astronauts on the International Space Station have used their 3-D printer to make a wrench from instructions sent up in an email. It is the first time hardware has been "emailed" to space. Nasa was responding to a request by ISS commander Barry Wilmore for a ratcheting socket wrench."
posted by marienbad (51 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
AWESOME.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:44 AM on December 20, 2014


okay sometimes I really like the future.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:45 AM on December 20, 2014 [10 favorites]


Amazon's next delivery tech
posted by Fupped Duck at 9:46 AM on December 20, 2014


Also the best part of the article is the bit where they explain that the first thing they used the 3D printer for was to print out a replacement part for the printer.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:46 AM on December 20, 2014 [22 favorites]


Still gotta get the raw materials up ther...
And, looking further ahead, the thinking becomes even more radical. Made In Space says it's been trying out possible raw materials for its printers including a substance similar to lunar soil.
Rad.
posted by notyou at 9:47 AM on December 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


(and a fleshlight)
posted by Auden at 9:49 AM on December 20, 2014


Does anyone happen to know much about the current state of the 3D-printing art in terms of material properties? It's been a few years since I was in a position to handle 3D-printed objects regularly. At that time the complexity and accuracy of the printed shapes was impressive, but parts were very fragile. How useful is this wrench likely to be?
posted by jon1270 at 9:53 AM on December 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Pretty cool. Can animate bio-materials be far behind, and we start 3D printing Space Marines?
posted by Thorzdad at 9:54 AM on December 20, 2014


Shame they sent up a 3/8" socket when they needed a 10mm. ;-)
posted by eriko at 9:59 AM on December 20, 2014 [16 favorites]


At that time the complexity and accuracy of the printed shapes was impressive, but parts were very fragile. How useful is this wrench likely to be?

There are lots of materials options these days. I think they have an FDM printer on the ISS. These can be used to print plastics with mechanical properties similar to those of ABS, which is pretty tough.

If you look to other technologies, laser sintering can be used to make parts from steel or titanium.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:00 AM on December 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Does anyone happen to know much about the current state of the 3D-printing art in terms of material properties? It's been a few years since I was in a position to handle 3D-printed objects regularly. At that time the complexity and accuracy of the printed shapes was impressive, but parts were very fragile. How useful is this wrench likely to be?

The wrench on the space station is just plastic (as on preview, I see mr_roboto said). But in general the technology is getting pretty good - now starting to use 3D-printed parts in rockets themselves.
posted by sigmagalator at 10:03 AM on December 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Meh. Let me know when they 3d-print an alluvial damper or hydrospanner.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:19 AM on December 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Retail desktop printers extrude mostly "plastic", but the variety of plastics is impressive and growing rapidly: ABS, PLA, Polycarbonate, TPU, TPE, Nylon, just to name a few. A wide variety of other materials (ie Carbon) can be combined with plastics to create even more variety.
posted by Brocktoon at 10:22 AM on December 20, 2014


The next step would be to send up a grinder and filament extruder, so you can grind up your old imperial wrench to print out your new metric wrench.
posted by phooky at 10:31 AM on December 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


How is it that they have a 3-D printer on the ISS and yet they have never ever sent printing instructions previously? Are they using it for freeform work or do they have such a large onboard pattern library that it has never been necessary?
posted by fairmettle at 10:43 AM on December 20, 2014


Now *this* is the goddamned future I was promised. More like this please!
posted by Space Kitty at 10:47 AM on December 20, 2014 [3 favorites]




Exactly what I was thinking, phooky. Being able to recycle materials from products that are no longer needed would really mitigate the raw materials problem that notyou identifies.

Lots of hand tools, for instance, are really specialized and may be totally redundant except for that one time when they are absolutely essential. Bringing stuff like that into space is obviously a problem. Heck, it's a problem here on Earth! I have several tools that were bought, used once, and are now just clutter, and I can't even count the number of projects I've abandoned because I didn't have some weird thing that I didn't feel like spending $25 on when I knew I'd never need it again. If I could print out that odd-size socket or nonstandard screwdriver and then melt/grind it down for feedstock afterward, it'd be great. It wouldn't even matter if its durability was poor—as long as it could get through the job it had been made for, it would be durable enough.

A system like that would probably be really useful on the ISS, and could potentially reduce a lot of waste and inefficiency here on the ground as well. And perhaps they could also deal with the inevitable need to send some new feedstocks up (no recycling system is 100% efficient) by incorporating them into the packaging materials for other components and supplies being shipped to the ISS.

This is really neat, and looks like the first glimmers of actual, honest-to-God on-demand printing of consumer objects. In fact, "consumer" might be a misnomer, as if this becomes commonplace it involve a lot less consumption as it is known today.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:55 AM on December 20, 2014 [7 favorites]


Fairmettle: TFA notes that the machine was installed November 17, and prior to this beamed up wrench, they'd been working through 21 test designs.
posted by notyou at 11:18 AM on December 20, 2014


"Astronauts on the International Space Station have used their 3-D printer to make a wrench..."

I think you meant to say "replicator"
posted by mach at 11:21 AM on December 20, 2014 [18 favorites]


It's not "Tea. Earl Grey -- hot," yet, but it's a step in that direction.
posted by radwolf76 at 11:21 AM on December 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


How is it that they have a 3-D printer on the ISS and yet they have never ever sent printing instructions previously? Are they using it for freeform work or do they have such a large onboard pattern library that it has never been necessary?

According to the single link and short article, the printer was put together on Nov 17th, printed its first parts on the the 25th, so they're getting there, ok?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:22 AM on December 20, 2014


This is cool, but it's not the first time we sent rapid prototyping plans to space.
posted by scrowdid at 11:32 AM on December 20, 2014


How is it that they have a 3-D printer on the ISS and yet they have never ever sent printing instructions previously?

The 3D printer was only taken up in September. While the idea was tossed around for years, especially after the Shuttle program was wound down, it was only recently that they completed ground-based testing (it is designed, naturally, for 0g) and sent it up on the Dragon CRS-4 flight^.

It's still officially experimental, and it isn't the highest priority for the crew, who have their days pretty mapped out even without this toy. The procedures for uploading were something imagined but not yet tested, so this was proof of viability (not unexpected). But the question of how well the tools or parts will work overall and how durable they might be is going to be ongoing. The real test will be when something without a spare breaks down and they have to try a 3D-printed part (something not unlike the Apollo 13 fix). At that level, this is serious, potentially life-threatening stuff, so a lengthy and careful proving process is critical. Being NASA, they don't move forward on a step like this until they can fully document and review it.
posted by dhartung at 12:59 PM on December 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Next step: unstoppable replicants!
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 1:11 PM on December 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


I wonder if there are 3D printing advantages to be realized in a vacuum? Are there useful and desirable materials and techniques for which the presence of air under pressure is a hindrance?

One thing that occurs to me is that in a hard vacuum you could replace sintering of metals with vacuum welding. A 3D printed metal object where every particle is effectively vacuum welded in place would be incredibly strong. The trick would be to keep the particles from welding before you used them. But if you stored them in a pressurized chamber and your process allowed sufficient time for surface outgassing... well, some process along those lines might work.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:13 PM on December 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Very cool.
posted by homunculus at 1:29 PM on December 20, 2014


Gravity is a big problem with 3D printing. Objects have to be designed to support their own weight while being printed, which limits what shapes you can make. So in microgravity you can print things that simply aren't possible on Earth.
posted by grahamparks at 1:46 PM on December 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


If they use a dual extruder and support material, their object options will actually increase.
posted by Brocktoon at 2:57 PM on December 20, 2014


Those of you really interested in this subject need to watch one of the Made In Space presentations. I've seen Niki Werkheiser speak a couple times now and she does a great job of explaining it all to a lay audience.

great intro to the printer from the CRS-4 briefing earlier this year
this Google Hangout from earlier this year
brief 2 minute excerpt from NASA panel

Seriously, all of your questions and concerns will be answered. They're a smart bunch, and they've been thinking about this a hell of a lot longer than most of you have.

By the way, the printer was brought up on the SpaceX CRS-4 mission a few months ago. The CRS-5 flight was supposed to launch earlier this week, but they had some problems on Wednesday and had to postpone it until next month. Mark my words, THAT launch will blow your mind ...
posted by intermod at 3:09 PM on December 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


This stuff is so cool that it invites speculation of the sort one might have attempted when contemplating the qualities that made a gasoline engine better than a steam engine: drive in movies, freeways, and asymmetrical warfare, for example. Which is to say, probably impossible to imagine in any detail.

Is this where chemical engineering kicks in? Well, maybe pretty soon, eh? Make the parts out of Moon dirt, Mars dirt, all that water and other crap found in comets and asteroids. Material for the next Space Habitat won't have to be lifted out of Earth's gravity well. Or, for that matter, the Moon's, either.

Now, how about the nano-printer that can drag atoms around and stack them into workable molecules? A little alcohol here, a magnetic field there, hold your mouth just right, and this could get really sideways really quickly. Food, fuel, tollhouse cookies.

Really.

The Holyshit factor is strong. Your grandchildren won't be able to imagine not having this stuff, and I doubt that any of us can imagine what their world will look like once the peripheral gadgetry begins to pop up.

It's sweet, being scientifically ignorant enough that, unfettered by practical concerns, I can see in the offing what amounts to a matter replicator--email the template, fire up the printer. Peripheral effects are too nebulous to plot. What might an economy look like that's based on, say, templates, rather than specific materials? Rather than commodities, we'd base our wealth on what?--royalties? How would cargo ship captains and cross-country truck drivers make a living? Why Fed-ex if you can email?

But wait: Star-Trek, or Road Warrior? Maybe just more of the same.
posted by mule98J at 4:14 PM on December 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Turns out they would download a socket wrench.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:39 PM on December 20, 2014 [9 favorites]


Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.
posted by T.D. Strange at 4:58 PM on December 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.

Careful there, you may end up with an unpleasant beverage that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 5:02 PM on December 20, 2014 [7 favorites]


They're a smart bunch, and they've been thinking about this a hell of a lot longer than most of you have.

True enough, but they've been thinking about it down here in the Slow Zone, whereas some of us who've only been thinking about it for a few seconds actually live in the High Beyond or Low Transcend, where a moment's thought can be the equivalent of the intellectual output of entire civilizations.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:43 PM on December 20, 2014 [6 favorites]


I don't understand why this is so interesting. 3d printers exist. their parts are defined by data files. someone decided to bring a 3d printer on the ISS. there is a data link between the ISS and earth. what is the big deal?
posted by scose at 8:06 PM on December 20, 2014


If the shipping cost for anything was a million dollars, an alternative would be very exciting.
posted by smackfu at 8:27 PM on December 20, 2014


what is the big deal?

The fact that it's the first time. An object has been created off-planet by uploading data to a machine we placed there. Sure, the technology to do so has existed in principle for a few years, but now it's actually something that our civilization has done. It's a genuine milestone. And it is cool.

It also proves that we're halfway to Von Neumann machines and we'll have self-constructing habitats all over the inner solar system in about a week.

Okay, that second part isn't quite true. But it ought to be.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:39 PM on December 20, 2014 [5 favorites]


I'm printing a spare right next to my laptop, right now. If the one up there breaks, I'm willing to take mine up. You know where to reach me, NASA!
posted by spacewrench at 8:47 PM on December 20, 2014 [5 favorites]


The Made In Space folks wrote up a summary at Medium, which includes this picture of some of the pieces that have been printed. I'm still a bit unclear on the assembly process and how many of the "sequence of 21 prints that together make up the first tools and objects ever manufactured off the surface of the Earth" refers to parts of the actual wrench (some of the pieces in that pic don't seem wrench-related at all), but I think it's clear there was some assembly required to create the wrench in question.
posted by mediareport at 9:25 PM on December 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


(And seriously? We have a member since 2004 called 'spacewrench'? How awesome is that?)
posted by mediareport at 9:26 PM on December 20, 2014


The printer has a Twitter feed.
posted by intermod at 10:18 PM on December 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


"So in theory, a 3D printer despatched to the Moon might be able to dig into the lunar surface, scoop up what is called the regolith, and transform it into the elements needed for a moon base."

?= Terraforming
posted by xtian at 7:25 AM on December 21, 2014


Not in the literal meaning of the word, i.e. making the Moon as habitable as Earth.

However 3D printing could be used to build or start shelters for humans to live in. That would be better than having to haul everything there.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:06 AM on December 21, 2014


"So in theory, a 3D printer despatched to the Moon might be able to dig into the lunar surface, scoop up what is called the regolith, and transform it into the elements needed for a moon base."

?=Terraforming


Extrapolate a step or two and we're the bad guys in some undetected-by-humans civilization's robot alien horror story.
posted by carsonb at 10:25 AM on December 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


I was watching Prof Brian Cox's The Human Universe a few weeks back, and he surprised me by being pessimistic about the existence of other technological civilizations in our galaxy. Life elsewhere seems very likely -- given how soon it emerged on Earth once the conditions were right it seems silly to assume it wouldn't happen with equal alacrity elsewhere. Multicellular life is a suprisingly complicated leap and took a good while longer. But once you get there, varying degrees of intelligence seem reasonable, and certainly you can expect to get intelligence on the scale of corvids and cetaceans and octopodes and chimpanzees.

But he thinks technological civilizations are improbable even where complex life exists, can readily imagine that we're the only one in the galaxy at this time, and possibly the only one that has ever existed in this galaxy. He's pretty persuasive too, all while acknowledging that with a sample of exactly one there's a hell of a lot of room to be wrong.

All the same, even the idea that this might be the first time in the history of our galaxy that a race of beings has created an object off-planet by transmitting data to a machine they placed there is enough to give me chills.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:34 AM on December 21, 2014


If Brian Cox is right (and at this point, his suppositions are as good as anyone else's on the subject), then that also means the pressure is really on us to do well and keep our precious selves and civilization in good working order. There's us, and there's nada, and only we can redeem it.

small whoa

I'm sure smarter folks have considered this, but widespread 3D printing of products moves the value definitively over to the IP (the transmitted design), with DRM challenges aplenty, I imagine. So many possibilities. Seeding Napster with fake files or malware instead of mp3s was underhanded, but imagine an industry group seeding tomorrow's CADTorrents with defective 3D parts?
posted by notyou at 4:51 PM on December 21, 2014




It's easy to be optimistic about the future, but I am reminded of the japanese artist who was recently arrested here for selling 3d printer patterns of her vagina for use in a kayak. I don't how to react to a world in which people are making boats from their own genitalia, and being punished for it.
posted by donkeymon at 12:11 AM on December 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


Great, now all I can think about is 3D space vaginas on the Moon.

No seriously, thank you, it's making this Monday awesome.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:30 AM on December 22, 2014


Oh, come on.

SWAT Team member: Okay, we've got the perp in handcuffs. She won't be printing anymore vaginas. What to you want me to do now?

SWAT Team commander: Got down to the dock and arrest that little man in the boat.
posted by mule98J at 9:38 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


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