Sam Fraser
06-04-2010, 10:44 AM
It could be a revolutionary age. MakerBot is one of a range of desktop manufacturing plants being developed by researchers and hobbyists around the world. Their goal is to create a machine that is able to fix itself and, ultimately, to replicate.
MakerBot and most of its kin are essentially a cut-price reinvention of the 3D printer. While professional machines still cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars, a coalition of academics and tinkerers has created versions that do much the same thing for much less. Anyone with a few hundred dollars and some spare time can build their own 3D printer from a set of plans distributed free on the internet.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627621.200-rise-of-the-replicators.html
Printing our own spare parts on the moon would come in handy. Feedstock seems to be limited to plastics for now.
MakerBot and most of its kin are essentially a cut-price reinvention of the 3D printer. While professional machines still cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars, a coalition of academics and tinkerers has created versions that do much the same thing for much less. Anyone with a few hundred dollars and some spare time can build their own 3D printer from a set of plans distributed free on the internet.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627621.200-rise-of-the-replicators.html
Printing our own spare parts on the moon would come in handy. Feedstock seems to be limited to plastics for now.