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While it seems like we have only skimmed the surface of all the ways <a href="http://www.goscan3d.com/blog/3d-printing-dummies_176" target="_blank">3D printing</a> could eventually transform our lives, it increasingly emerges as a truly out-of-this-world component. And bad pun intended, we are actually being literal here: the technology is unveiling itself as one of the most essential building blocks of space exploration.Of course, 3D printing for space manufacturing makes perfect sense, since it circumvents several issues relative to traditional manufacturing: custom tools and machinery for each part, raw material availability, not to mention the weight and bulk of both&hellip; Manufacturing in space instead of bringing materials and components from Earth thus saves time and simplifies the process, while also expanding possibilities and opportunities. The need for a specific tool or replacement part suddenly arises? A 3D printer can (theoretically at least) produce it quickly and efficiently, without having to wait for the next shuttle from Earth!<h2>How it started</h2>In 2011, European aerospace giant Airbus sent the first 3D printed part outside of our atmosphere; it was a titanium alloy bracket used on the Atlantic Bird 7 telecom satellite.The company repeated the feat in 2015, when it produced the first space-qualified 3D printed to replace a satellite component, a structural bracket. The new part weighed 35 % less than the previous one, while being 40 % stiffer. Moreover, it was made into a single piece, instead of 4 riveted together in 44 places as for the old one. That&rsquo;s a very significant improvement!<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1588041075490-3d-printed-architecture-1.jpg" style="width: 788px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Still, as Airbus Telecommunications Satellites R&amp;D Manager Alan Cox puts it, large-scale 3D printing in space is not quite a reality yet. &ldquo;We must first be able to prove the repeatability of 3D processes and our ability to consistently produce high-quality, affordable components,&rdquo; he explained.<h2>The Gravity Problem</h2>One of the challenges this new field faces is the absence of gravity in space. When 3D printing an object, a nozzle extrudes layer upon layer of material according to a 3D plan (which you can obtain using our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.goscan3d.com/en" target="_blank">3D scanners for 3D printing</a> for example) in order to slowly &ldquo;build&rdquo; it into the real world.Engineers and scientists have already figured out that some processes are much more suited for a &ldquo;microgravity&rdquo; environment than others: a filament deposition modelling with plastic heated to a relatively low temperature works fairly well, for instance. But other additive manufacturing techniques, such as those using molten metal, resin or powder, prove to be much more difficult to use in space, since the materials are less stable. The powder would just float around into a cloud, among other things.For these reasons, a 3D printer using the filament deposition modelling process is currently being tested by the NASA (using this prototype <a href="http://www.madeinspace.us/projects/3dp/" target="_blank">Zero-G 3D printer</a>) on the International Space Station and it already produced 21 parts, including the wrench shown below. Only a few minor issues have come up so far: for instance, objects sticking a little too well to the build plate and becoming slightly damaged after being &ldquo;forced&rdquo; out. NASA experts are trying to figure out if that is in fact due to the microgravity effect; if so, they are planning to find workarounds.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1588041111836-3d-printed-architecture-2.jpg" style="width: 788px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Quincy Bean, a materials engineer and the principal investigator for this project, expects that once the technique is fully operational, astronauts will use 3D printing to replace crew tools, to replace life support systems or to build any specific tooling they need.<h2>Lunar Habitations Coming Up?</h2>Airbus is even taking part in an exciting project led by the European Space Agency, called AMAZE. Combining 28 partners from the industry as well as from the academic world, AMAZE aims at refining 3D printing techniques in order to make it possible to mass produce space-grade parts, even in metal.London-based architecture firm Foster + Partners is also part of the project, and their own participation is a very intriguing one&hellip; They imagined a lunar base for four people, using 3D printing techniques and regolith, or lunar soil, as a material.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1588041246210-3d-printed-architecture-3v2.jpg" style="width: 788px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1588041259343-3d-printed-architecture-5.jpg" style="width: 788px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The complex would shield astronauts from meteorites, gamma radiation and temperature variations. A tubular module would first be shipped from Earth by space rocket. Once landed, it would then be extended by an inflatable dome to support building structure. Finally, a robot-operated 3D printer would form a protective shell from regolith. The shell itself would be created using a hollow cellular structure a little bit like a honeycomb, for both solidity as well as raw material economy.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1588041282848-3d-printed-architecture-6.jpg" style="width: 788px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The firm built a 1.5-ton mockup using simulated lunar soil, and tested the 3D printing techniques in a vacuum chamber mimicking moon conditions. We recently talked to you about the first 3D printed building, and we happen to think that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.goscan3d.com/blog/is-the-building-of-the-future-3d-printed_600" target="_blank">3D printed architecture</a> is one of the most promising applications for the technology. But this project truly is something else!It will be incredibly interesting to watch this all unfold. And not only just to be able to reply to the question &ldquo;Where will technology takes us next?&rdquo; by a resounding &ldquo;Well, to space!&rdquo; one day.

While it seems like we have only skimmed the surface of all the ways 3D printing could eventually transform our lives, it increasingly emerges as a truly out-of-this-world component.

3D Printed Architecture in Space: 3D Printing on the Moon

As NASA gears up to send humans back to the moon or even to Mars, they&#39;ll need to figure out how to keep these humans healthy and safe, far away from the resource-abundant Earth.It won&#39;t be feasible to pack everything they may need over the course of the mission, and resupply missions like those that keep the International Space Station (ISS) stocked will be prohibitively expensive and lengthy.What these astronauts can pack are Earth&#39;s unique renewable resource: cells. Cells of fungi and bacteria, for example, can be reprogrammed with synthetic DNA to produce specific materials, like bioplastics. These materials can then be fed into 3-D printers to manufacture things the astronauts may need during spaceflight &mdash; everything from hardware and medical devices to medicine and food.In an opinion piece&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(19)30110-6" target="_blank">published online</a> in&nbsp;Trends in Biotechnology, researchers from the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and NASA outline ways that synthetic biology and 3-D printing can support life during deep-space human missions. But to make these ideas a reality, NASA is seeking help.&quot;Our opinion piece is a call to action to get DIY [do-it-yourself] biology and makerspace communities involved,&quot; says Peter Carr, who works in Lincoln Laboratory&#39;s Bioengineering Systems and Technologies Group. The DIY biology community makes it possible for anyone in the public with an interest to conduct biological engineering. The community operates outside the traditional academic or industry settings and spreads knowledge through open sourcing. Many DIY biologist groups operate makerspaces that provide equipment and supplies for members to do experiments on their own.&quot;These separate, eclectic communities do bio in unconventional settings all the time and are pioneers at rapid prototyping and developing technologies with limited resources. There are parallels here with space and the needs of NASA crews,&quot; Carr says. &quot;But this also requires organizations like ours and NASA to connect more deeply with them in a two-way process, so there&#39;s a real pathway to getting people&#39;s work into space. We&#39;re just getting started.&quot;3-D printers are common staples of makerspaces. Experiments done on the ISS with 3-D printers have proven their utility for manufacturing on-demand items, like replacement hardware. But if 3-D printing is to be a reliable tool for long-duration missions in space, a new problem crops up: the need to supply the ship with the feedstock for the printers.To meet this need, the authors envision using synthetic biology to produce custom biological &quot;ink&quot; to 3-D print whatever may be needed over the course of a mission. Such a process would give scientists &quot;the autonomy to design for the unknown,&quot; says Jessica Snyder, a USRA researcher who leads the synthetic biology task for the NASA Academic Mission Services.Living organisms can convert sunlight, nitrogen, and water into finished products. Bioengineers can reprogram the inner logic of these organisms&#39; cells to produce target compounds. The building blocks to edit these cells can be digitized and sent to the space crew in the form of a DNA sequence, which can be synthesized, assembled, and inserted into an organism on ship. &quot;The idea is what we call a &#39;bits-to-biology&#39; converter,&quot; says David Walsh, a bioengineer at Lincoln Laboratory.Here&#39;s one example of how this vision could be implemented: Say that astronauts faced a situation that occurred on the ISS in 2007 &mdash; a solar panel has torn and needs a repair strap. On Earth, synthetic biologists, whether of the DIY type or not, design and test genetic programs instructing bacteria to produce the polymer feedstock for 3-D printing. (This work could also take place well before the need arises during the space mission.) The maker community works out the design of a strap from those materials. These genetic instructions and 3-D printing instructions are sent digitally from Earth to the space crew. The crew reproduces the genetic program, and the bacteria reproduce and synthesize the raw materials, which are used to 3-D print the strap. At the end of the product&#39;s life cycle, the part is recovered and digested, and a new one can be made.&nbsp;&quot;We have the power of digital information. We can design and work out all of the kinks on Earth and simply send the instructions to space,&quot; Walsh says.The same principles can be used to insert DNA into organisms in space to make target compounds for food or pharmaceuticals, which if brought directly from Earth would degrade over time from radiation in space.&nbsp;Astronauts would be able to conduct these complex biology experiments by using 3-D-printed microfluidic devices. These tiny &quot;lab-on-a-chip&quot; devices automatically control the flow and mixture of fluids through microchannels and use only trace amounts of chemicals to run hundreds of bioreactions in parallel in seconds. Genetic instructions would be sent directly to electronics controlling these microfluidic devices, enabling them to precisely follow the digital &quot;recipe&quot; to synthetize molecules of DNA.&nbsp;Earlier this year, Lynn Rothschild, a scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center who co-authored the opinion piece, led a team that ran the first synthetic biology experiments in space. The experiments aimed to test how well bacteria in space take in synthetic DNA inserted into their genome and how well the bacteria produce proteins, while being spun to simulate microgravity (what astronauts in the ISS encounter), lunar gravity, and Martian gravity levels. The experiments took place on the PowerCell payload aboard the German satellite mission Eu:CROPIS (Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-Food Production in Space).There is still a long way to go, however, both in experimenting with synthetic biology and figuring out all of the parameters that would make 3-D printing with biomaterials possible in space. &quot;For example, bacteria will need water and will take up space; they need the right environment to live; and they&#39;ll produce waste. We still need to put these ideas up against the real-world constraints,&quot; Carr says.But there&#39;s urgency in developing the concepts now. If synthetic biology and 3-D printing techniques can be proven and practiced in time for missions close to Earth, from which supplies can still be sent relatively quickly, then they can be counted on for a long-term mission to Mars.&quot;Flexible manufacturing techniques provide an excellent complement to Earth-based supply chains for destinations days away, like the International Space Station and possible lunar infrastructure, for examples. Let&#39;s take advantage of this redundancy to build an in-space manufacturing capacity to take us further into space more safely,&quot; Snyder says. Do-it-yourself biologists and makers can help today by publishing their designs for 3-D-printed products, microfluidic devices, or synthetic DNA on open-source repositories and by testing and editing published designs. &quot;If DIY bio communities use, iteratively improve, and ultimately approve of a technique, then that technique has been optimized more robustly than most individuals or team could offer without great effort. Partnering with these communities is an invaluable asset,&quot; Snyder adds. People who are interested can also see&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/centennial_challenges/index.html" target="_blank">NASA&#39;s Centennial Challenges</a>, which outline problems that NASA is seeking the public&#39;s help to solve.&nbsp;&quot;We often hear about the engineer who was inspired by NASA in their youth and works there now. But what about the bio people who are inspired by these grand ideas? How can they contribute? Now is a chance to transition their ideas to space,&quot; Carr says. &quot;There is so much opportunity to innovate.&quot;

Microfluidic devices, like those shown here, could be 3-D printed in space and used to construct DNA for insertion into bacteria, reprogramming them to make specific products.  Photo: Nicole Fandel

Do-it-yourself bio and maker communities can help NASA meet needs of long-distance missions.

Scientists look to synthetic biology and 3-D printing for life support in space

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3D Printed Architecture in Space: 3D Printing on the Moon

Scientists look to synthetic biology and 3-D printing for life support in space