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Old September 11th 13, 06:58 AM posted to sci.space.station
snidely
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Default 3D printing in microgravity

Remember when Brian Gaff bragged outrageously? That was Wednesday:
Yes they have been testing rocket injector nozzles produced this way for
some time now. What I do not get though is obviously, the materieal laid down
or cut away in this process must be different for different items, and
presumably, several runs with different materials would be needed to make
complex items. Where do you keep all this material?


In tanks or boxes. Some of which can probably be outside the pressure
vessels.

But consider the amount of space taken up by pre-fabricated spares.
There's a lot of unused volume in most part bins, and perhaps packaging
and wrappings. With 3D printing, you're storing bulk materials and not
the unused volume.

/dps

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013