Deep Space Industries to join the asteroid gold rush

maninasia

seamus wrote: »

I'm guessing the medium-term game here is some form of semi-automated orbital processing plant which checks/refines the samples returned and carries out repairs on any craft. The advent of 3D printing really does a lot here as it means that practically any component can be manufactured on board. So basically once you have the station built, it can build its own fireflies and send them on, massively reducing the cost of sending thousands (if not millions) of drones into space.

This 3D printing lark is a complete joke.

Look at a hammer.
Is a hammer made from plastic that same as one made from hardened steel?
Can electronics be made in a 3D printer?

Can a 3D printer make anything more useful than a plastic shoe or wrench or cup or screw. I doubt it.

It can't even make a bloody sock.

maninasia

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

actually it's worth a lot more at GEO

you can make structures out of it , 3D printer and all that

you can use it as reaction mass

you could make flywheels out of it for gyroscopic attitude control

it could be used to make shields , mirrors

The Mars Curiosity rover used 300Kg of inert ballast during it's descent



on the ground it's pretty worthless allright

So you can make mirrors out of nickel, it polishes itself does it?
Nickel melts at what temperature?
How do you make nickel objects in a 3D printer?
What's the purity of nickel on asteroids?

Just a few GIANT holes in this theory.

maninasia

ZeRoY wrote: »

That would be the first mistake. There are hundreds of prices for Nickel as even Pure Nickel on Earth is alloy. I cant find a price for Asteroid Nickel un-surprisingly but something tells me its composition will be different as well as its price!

I think a lot of people are looking at this guys thinking they are lunatics with lots of cash to spare but I say they are just pioneer, Space exploration and mining is coming, this guys are just the first to really try it out.

It's all about publicity, get new investors for their core projects, get the government to chip in some money. James Cameron is involved with one of the projects so you know it's all about the documentary for that one.

im invisible

seamus wrote: »

I'm guessing the medium-term game here is some form of semi-automated orbital processing plant which checks/refines the samples returned and carries out repairs on any craft. The advent of 3D printing really does a lot here as it means that practically any component can be manufactured on board. So basically once you have the station built, it can build its own fireflies and send them on, massively reducing the cost of sending thousands (if not millions) of drones into space.

two words: Skynet.

Just Like Heaven

maninasia wrote: »

How do you make nickel objects in a 3D printer?

I could be wrong but haven't NASA sort of done something like this with a nickel alloy using selective laser melting?

And again, I don't know a lot about this, but are they not looking into printing electronics;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfapBnzLzF4

My understanding of the vision for 3D printing was always more the idea that a part of your hoover at home breaks, instead of throwing it out you can just google the part and print it off. Less so making things like socks and hammers. Wouldn't it work if they just designed the fireflies/satelites/robots printable in the first place?

seamus

3D printing isn't limited to producing one-piece plastics. That's the current limit of home applications, but primarily because the process and the raw materials are cheap and easy to work with.

On the scale of billion-dollar budgets, complex machinery can be "printed" component-by-component and assembled automatically. It's unbelievably short-sighted to think that 3D printing will only ever be able to print simple one-piece plastics. There have already been prototypes of printers with multiple "cartridges" containing different compounds which allows for a complex item to be printed in one move.

No, they're not replicators, but they're planning to mine minerals. There's your raw material from which you build more equipment. Anything which isn't easily mined or produced in orbit can be periodically shipped up from earth. Building equipment on earth and shipping it up is more troublesome because stuff can break. Even just shipping the components up unassembled is better than having it pre-assembled.

Actually I like your sock example, because that's a good example of the kind of process I mean. You can produce nylon fibres - that's your 3D printing - then have the socks woven by machine. Et voila; Socks, produced automatically by the facility. I'm not sure what use nylon socks would be in orbit, but it could be done.

maninasia

Well yes but then you would have to ship the nylon to make the sock in the first place..and the chips etc etc. Materials matter, and the combination of materials made under different processes at different pressures will vary enormously in their usefulness and application.

I think some sort of microfabricating facility will be useful in the far future, but not for decades and decades. You would want a bunch of generic switches, ICs etc which a robot could stick together for you and which would have updatable firmware. Again though you are not actually going to be making the ICs and many of the components on a spacecraft.

The energy to needed to produce these tools and also to refine the materials to make the tools (such as nickel), especially if they require high temperatures and pressures, is also a big problem. The raw material is not just sitting there ready to be used on an asteroid. It needs to be refined and purified or else just drop shipped back to Earth.

maninasia

I guess I get browned off at these kinds of ridiculous claims 'as big as the internet' that get accepted almost without question?!?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9788066.stm

How is a 3D printer going to make my leather shoes with rubber soles eh?
If I want to wear a pair of crocs I would have gone and bought them already