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NASA Aims To Slash Space Shipping Costs With Shiny 3-D Printer
The Columbus module is installed on the International Space Station in 2008. Pictured is NASA astronaut Rex Walheim. Credit: NASA
Need a part on the International Space Station? You’re going to have to wait for that. That is, wait for the next spaceship to arrive with the critical tool to make a repair, or replace something that broke. You can imagine how that slows down NASA’s desire for science on the orbiting laboratory.
Enter the first orbiting “machine shop”: a 3-D printer that was just installed in the station’s Columbus laboratory this week. If the printer works as planned, astronauts will be able to make simple things based on instructions from the ground. Over time, the agency hopes this will save time and money, and reduce the need to rely on shipments from Earth. And keep an eye out in 2015: two other 3-D printers are scheduled to join it.
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Read the rest of NASA Aims To Slash Space Shipping Costs With Shiny 3-D Printer (429 words)
© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: Expedition 42, expedition 43, futura, made in space, National Research Council, pop3d, samantha cristoforetti
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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/116294/nasa-aims-to-slash-space-shipping-costs-with-shiny-3-d-printer/
