3D printing on the moon

Maybe 3D printing will be an integral part of off-world manufacturing in the future.

[www.bbc.co.uk]

[www.engadget.com]

[forums.reprap.org]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2012 01:08PM by akhlut.

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

SLS on the moon! Wouldnt they have to crush the rocks into a consistant super fine dust for SLS to work with precision? Also Silica-like material for car frames sounds scary, even when the car only weighs 332lbs (assuming it wieghs 2,000lbs on earth.)

They were talking a lot about emergency repair materials and patching, so I guess thats the realistic "first step" in 3D printing on the moon. Then again, since our 2020 launch has been delayed, perhaps by the time they do get another man on the moon we will have this all figured out.

---

-Tom

... AFAIK the moon surface is mostly covered with ultrafine dust from recondensing mineral vapours created with every impact of the many mikro-, makro- and mega-meteorites ... so collecting and sieving to the needed size should be enough, no crushing needed

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

It's "micro" and "macro" in english, but I see your point. Sieving would save a lot of trouble. With all the ultra-light super-expensive materials avaliable to NASA then perhaps putting a foldable SLS up there wouldnt be too much of a problem.

Did you see those pipes made with simulated moon rocks? Yikes! Some Makers need to step inside NASA and show them how it's done. SLS printing should look much nicer than that even with sifted moon dust.

---

-Tom

A series of high-powered lasers in geosynchronous orbit around the moon + moon based groomers to deposit lunar regolith. SLS on a massive scale to "print" moon base structures. Once they're printed send in a digger to excavate. Add an airlock and you're in business. Probably faster/cheaper than sending components piecemeal.

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

"This just in! Local 3D printing community takes over the Moon for profit. When asked how they will defend against the worlds' military the community replied 'We'll throw rocks.'"

Worked for Heinlein...

---

-Tom

Now all we need to do is convince Elon Musk...

---

- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

... the regolith on the moon has some other advantages too - when baked, it starts to exhaust some rare and exotic gases ... I'm remebering some maybe +30 years old concepts for collecting helium-isotopes and other highly valuable gases by heating the stones with concentrated sun-light and shipping the bottles to Earth ...

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Helium-3 was theoretically the milk of a next-gen nuclear fusion power plant. not sure if we dont have the tech to use it yet or if we just havent tried due to it's rarity.

an article explaining it all

Quote

roughly one million tons of lunar soil being needed to be mined and processed for every 70 tonnes of helium-3 yield

Quote

25 tonnes of helium-3 -- or a fully-loaded Space Shuttle cargo bay's worth -- could power the United States for a year. This means that helium-3 has a potential economic value in the order of $3bn a tonne

3 billion dollars a ton!

So let's get started on the shuttles...

---

-Tom

Sniper4395 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Helium-3 was theoretically the milk of a next-gen
> nuclear fusion power plant. not sure if we dont
> have the tech to use it yet or if we just havent
> tried due to it's rarity.

It won't fuse any easier than the fusion fuels available on Earth. It has some minor benefits but is not a requirement for nuclear fission as such. The expense and difficulty of mining and hauling it back from the moon will most likely far outweigh the possible benefits.

... so better fuse it on the moon and use the generated energy to print some usefull 3D-objects out from moon-dust

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

ttsalo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sniper4395 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Helium-3 was theoretically the milk of a
> next-gen
> > nuclear fusion power plant. not sure if we dont
> > have the tech to use it yet or if we just
> havent
> > tried due to it's rarity.
>
> It won't fuse any easier than the fusion fuels
> available on Earth. It has some minor benefits but
> is not a requirement for nuclear fission as such.
> The expense and difficulty of mining and hauling
> it back from the moon will most likely far
> outweigh the possible benefits.


The benefits arent exactly minor. H3 reactors would use fusion, not fission. That means no nuclear waiste will be produced by the power plants and instead Helium gas will be a byproduct. This alone makes H3 worthy of replacing current nuclear tech.

According to this it will cost roughly 115$ billion to get up there and another 7$ billion a year to maintain an operation on the moon. Considering the price of H3 and the amount that could be safely mined and shipped to Earth the whole project could pay for it's self 10 fold.

We just need 100 KamerMaker sized SLS printers to start printing whole cities and power them with H3 reactors and solar power :-)

---

-Tom

Sniper4395 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> According to this it will cost roughly 115$
> billion to get up there and another 7$ billion a
> year to maintain an operation on the moon.
> Considering the price of H3 and the amount that
> could be safely mined and shipped to Earth the
> whole project could pay for it's self 10 fold.

That article doesn't mention anything about mining Helium-3 and returning 25 tonnes a year to Earth. That will cost extra, probably a lot extra. A US court put the cost of returning Moon rocks to the Earth at $50,000 per gram. That's $50 bn per tonne. Obviously the Apollo missions weren't designed to be bulk transporters, but the problem with space is that economies of scale don't work well. 95% of your payload is fuel. So there is a lot to go to get the cost down to less than $3 bn tonne, and that is before you pay for the mining facility. He-3 will need compressing to a liquid for transport. If you were to double the supply of energy, the price will crash, so you will need to figure that in.

If nuclear fusion is supposed to provide unlimited power, why do we need to get fuel from the Moon?? Fusion is an overhyped high-tech dream. It will never be economic. Any business model that includes the words "and we get raw materials from space" has no hope.

I hate to be a killjoy on the idea of using H3 to finance space exploration (and, of course, 3D printer-related applications), but our technology today is a long, long way from a power-generating fusion reactor. Serious research in fusion reactors started in the 1950's and was considered a 50+ year technology (it would be a reality in 50+ years). Sixty years later, a fusion power plant is still a 50+ year technology.

bobc returning moon rocks to Earth meant creating specialized compartments for each rock within the spaceship which took a lot of room. It was not so much about the weight because shipping from the Moon to Earth is a downhill battle. As long as the shipping shuttle has enough of a heat barrier for reorbit I cant see why an H3 tank cant be crammed together and somewhat lethargically splashed into the ocean on an unmanned craft. Perhaps crafs which can be 3D printed on the Moon :-)

Also where did you read 50 billion a ton? This site claims it cost the Apollo program $28,500 per pound which is $57 million a ton to return Moon rocks to Earth. This site is planning on selling moon rocks one day for $3.375 million per pound which is $6.75 billion per ton and thats at a consumer mark up! Heck. If that sold then one could just ship rocks to Earth and pay for the mission.

PeteD that doesnt necessarily mean that we dont have the capabilities to use He-3 yet, it could just mean that we dont have enough He-3 avaliable.

---

-Tom

@Sniper - The fact that we are nowhere near capable of building a fusion reactor that can generate excess energy does in fact mean that He-3 is beyond our capabilities to use as a fuel source in any sort of volume.

The only people who will have an interest in He-3 for the foreseeable future are researchers, and they only need very small amounts for their experiments. You gents are talking of shipping back metric tonnes of He-3, while the total global demand over the past decade can be measured in kilograms.

I'm probably taking this too seriously, (this is, after all, a fun subject to daydream about) but no one is going to be able to fund a space program with He-3 in the foreseeable future.

... what's with other precious gases or refined materials?

With a linear accelerator along the moon equator - and without any atmosphere - returning unmanned loads to earth is a matter of current ... either generated by fusion or by some hundre square-miles of solar plants

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I see that there is a much broader interest in the subject on this forum than I originally thought. To get a wild idea for what has been realized already take a look at the thread I posted here : Building from Scratch

But then it is about (a kind of) 3D printing on the planet Mars to which Mars One hopes to send humans in 2022 (to arrive on Mars in 2023).

Also the thread self-replicating factories? on this forum relates to the subject.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2012 02:09AM by CrazyIdea.

... I'm following this 'building from scratch' concepts since Eric Drexlers book "Engines of Creation" in 1986.

He was busy with similar ideas around space colonies and such (sometimes with NASA or other associations) since 1975 and on ... his most feasible time line was pointed to 'in 50 years', so we have some time until 2030 to get serious

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Maybe the best we will able to achieve before 2022 is the creation of almost-self-replicating-machines (or almost-self-replicating-factories) that can be replicated with a little human aid and are small enough for interplanetary travel, although you'll never know into which the current technology may accelerate. So the question is : "At what technology acceleration level are we standing today?". Maybe 10 years from now we will have the answer. Looking at the present developments I somehow expect it to be a very interesting next decade.

... some analysts compare the actual situation in 'additive 3D-fabbing' with the PC development over the last 30 years.

In respect to the PC timeline we're in a similar situation as the PC's around 1980 - but the pacing time for 3D-fabbing should be around 3x faster, so we should receive a comparable 'evolution' progress in 10 years from now ... so 2022 for some serious improvements sounds correct

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Some fun reading material that may apply here:

Ray Kurzweil's The Coming Singularity

Technological Singularity Wiki

Ray Kurzweil's Timeline







The point I'm trying to make here (if any point at all) is that we dont need the technology right now in order to start planning for the demands.

Also it's just interesting stuff! :-)

---

-Tom

Interesting in this field is also :

3D-Printed Circuit Board

Quote

The goal of this project is to enable the personal manufacturing of simple electronics, especially for Open Source Hardware -- with nothing except a 3D printer, your hands or equivalent, and the basic high-technology electronic components (capacitors, motors, transistors, etc -- but will eventually encompass ICs, microcontrollers etc). Instead of solder, wires, and breadboards, OpenSCAD generates a peg-board PCB and component holder, and a circuit can be hand-wound together with conductive thread.

And this :

3D-printed consumer electronics just became a reality

Quote

Embedding sensors and electronics inside of 3D objects in a single build process has been a long sought after goal in 3D printing (3DP). A group led by Simon Leigh, at the University of Warwick in England, has now done just that. Leigh’s group developed a low-cost material they call carbomorph – a carbon black filler in a matrix of a biodegradable polyester.

In addition to being conductive, carbomorph is piezoresistive. This means which that when it is bent or stressed, its resistance changes. Typically the resistance increases as the object is bent because the conductive grains are spread further apart. Piezoresistive strips of carbon nanotubes have been created previously by other groups and used in the measurement of movement, but printing them is something new.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2012 09:49AM by CrazyIdea.

I don't see why we couldn't, right now, lay a thin layer of copper down on a board and the finished product would look like a printed circuit board does now except no acid or etchant was used. Even multi layered boards could easily be done with a dual extruder type setup where one head is laying down the substrate and the other the copper.

I can even see the day with four heads where one is the substrate, the next is the copper, the third the components and the fourth head would be the solderer. The third head would be more like a robotic arm type system so it could insert the parts. What is so scary is that with the technology it is not far fetched to think that each component on the circuit board could be built as it goes too (for now the ICs would be too complex to do that but the discrete parts could easily be done enough in a manufacturing type setup as it would need a sterile environment).

For home use I could see a circuit board being made and when a copper trace needs to be made head two swings into action. What is cool about this setup as opposed to how things are done now is that there is no gaps as everything would be at the same height (the copper and the substrate) since one head would stop the substrate to continue, in that spot, with the copper, then swing back to continue with the substrate. The old way the copper gets etched away and that leaves a valley when looked at or felt with your finger tips.

---

_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

Sniper4395 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also where did you read 50 billion a ton? This
> site claims it cost the Apollo program $28,500 per
> pound which is $57 million a ton to return Moon
> rocks to Earth.

Quote

The total mass was 381.69 kilograms or 841.6 pounds. It was delivered in 2196 original samples at a cost for the Apollo program of 24 billion dollars or 28,500 dollars per pound.

$24 billion / 841.6 pounds = $28.5 million per pound or $62 billion per metric ton

I hope that people planning space programs have a better grasp of basic math

> This site is planning on selling
> moon rocks one day for $3.375 million per pound
> which is $6.75 billion per ton and thats at a
> consumer mark up! Heck. If that sold then one
> could just ship rocks to Earth and pay for the
> mission.

Well, you can claim anything with a Powerpoint. I am not sure I would give them any money just yet. There are dozens of companies competing for the Ansari X-prize - to land a lunar rover. The only company who has made significant progress is SpaceX. SpaceX have spent around $1 billion to get a cargo shuttle to the ISS which is pretty good going. If they spent $400 million on a lunar sample return mission, to get say 200kg of rocks that would be $2 million per kg, which puts the cost in the region of economic feasibility.

I think that the commercial opportunity for space in the near future is space tourism/souvenirs, so companies like Interorbital and Scaled Composites have the right idea. NASA eschews such frivolous activities, but it's a great market for private enterprise.

Dark Alchemist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't see why we couldn't, right now, lay a thin
> layer of copper down on a board and the finished
> product would look like a printed circuit board
> does now except no acid or etchant was used.

Let me stop you right there... how do you propose to do this? Anyone got a prototype ?

bobc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dark Alchemist Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I don't see why we couldn't, right now, lay a
> thin
> > layer of copper down on a board and the
> finished
> > product would look like a printed circuit board
> > does now except no acid or etchant was used.
>
> Let me stop you right there... how do you propose
> to do this? Anyone got a prototype ?
I only wish we had one.

I think we could have a working model and not just a prototype but the issue is not the mechanics of it as we have that down right now but getting a copper wire to melt without melting everything we currently have. The nozzle would cease to exist at 1,085°C, which is the melting point of Copper.

When I said I don't see why we can't right now I meant not pure copper but something else with the same properties of copper but with a substantially lower melting point (something man made perhaps). For home 3d printer use we would need the above but for a plant they could use what we already have and use copper but, of course, the nozzle would be made out of iron which has a melting point of 1,538°C (800f higher than copper). Everything would be made out of iron, would weigh tons, but a foundry already does this so I don't see why, lets say, a RepRap, on an industrial scale couldn't.

---

_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

Quote

The total mass was 381.69 kilograms or 841.6 pounds. It was delivered in 2196 original samples at a cost for the Apollo program of 24 billion dollars or 28,500 dollars per pound.

My math wasn't wrong there, the quote was wrong. It says $28,500 dollars per pound. Multiply by 2000 (one ton) is $57 million. Good catch tho!

Dark Alchemist have you seen Prusa's new hotend design? It gets something like 500C and is the size of my earring! Think I heard he got it much higher once, but it oxidized like crazy. Even some rumors about extruding aluminum with a similar design "soon."

---

-Tom

Sniper4395 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dark Alchemist have you seen Prusa's new hotend
> design? It gets something like 500C and is the
> size of my earring! Think I heard he got it much
> higher once, but it oxidized like crazy. Even some
> rumors about extruding aluminum with a similar
> design "soon."
Really? OMG, I think I wet myself, lol. Well, there is hope but for copper you need over double his amount but there are other materials he might could try. What I wonder is how he would cool the parts touching the hot end so they don't start to melt and warp?

---

_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

... if you can print with higher temps, than simply make the surrounding parts from this high-temp material too - so no melting/warping will occur

For another problem I used some gold-tin-alloy (80% gold, 20% tin), that melted first time below 400degC, but needed >700degC for remelting again.

So with mixing eutectic alloys you can print parts at lower temps, than they will withstand when completed

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]