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Printers Meant to Make Rockets
- bhhaskin 9y agoI wish I could read the article, but there was just too many ads.
- DiThi 9y agoAnd autoplay video, without easy way to stop it. Ugh.
- bhhaskin 9y agoMost of these "news" outlets are becoming more and more aggressive with advertising.
- bitwize 9y agoIt's either ads, subscriptions, or they'll run cryptocurrency mining on your hardware. Journalism ain't free, kiddos.
- imglorp 9y agoI'd rather a micropayment system with browser plugin that decrements your account on sites you agree to pay per page view. I don't mind paying $0.02 to read a decent article but I really don't want a bunch of CPU load DOS'ing my machine or malware screwing with it or my privacy.
- QAPereo 9y ago1blocker on iOS, uMatrix elsewhere.
- frandroid 9y agohttps://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/07/how-to-disable-auto-playing-flash-and-html5-videos/ https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/07/how-to-disable-auto-playin... It's a bit annoying for pages like Youtube where you do want autoplay to work, so you have to move the timeline cursor a bit, but the upside is worth it. Also available in Chrome, I hear.
- gricardo99 9y agouBlock to the rescue. I didn't see any ads. Although it doesn't always work on stupid auto-play videos.
- ricardobeat 9y agoI wish HN would tag these with a [paywall] label. It is incredibly annoying to find out after the 2nd paragraph that you can’t really read the article you were suggested, turn around and do the google search dance.
- marcell 9y agoI know very little about rockets and 3D printing, so maybe someone can answer two things for me: 1. Does 3D printing make sense for large projects like rockets, which will be used in extreme conditions? I thought it was more for prototypes. 2. How does this compare to SpaceX, which is attempting to reuse rockets? How important is this fixed cost if you use a rocket 100 times?
- wavefunction 9y agoSpaceX 3d prints SuperDraco[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperDraco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperDraco
- toomuchtodo 9y agoThere are some SpaceX alumni at Relativity.
- maxander 9y agoI would speculate that their eventual end goal is to be bought out by either SpaceX or Blue Origin. A small space launch startup focusing on one technology isn’t going very far on its own, and few other companies would have an interest in their approach.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoAnother possible exit scenario is to be acquired by ULA or another cost plus contractor who is grasping at straws to become competitive against SpaceX's reusable vehicles.
- tintor 9y ago1. It matters a lot because you need to optimize the structure and engines for weight and 3D printing lets you make strong, and yet mostly hollow materials.
- digikata 9y ago
- cbanek 9y agoIt sounds like an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I buy it. It makes sense that building single use rockets is expensive, and with only one launch to amortize the construction cost, labor is a huge factor (materials in a rocket are pretty normal: a lot of carbon fiber, aluminum, titanium, etc). But with reusable rockets, you are bringing that cost way down. If you are able to launch and land 5 times on the same rocket, then effectively you've brought the cost of the rocket to 1/5th of what it used to be. "a handful of the arms can work together to create the rocket’s entire body as a single piece" Once you get into reusable rockets, I'm not sure that trying to 3d print the whole thing will turn out. Why? Because you need replaceable parts. You need to be able to tear down, inspect, and replace parts as each part of the rocket has a different lifetime. If you make the rocket as one giant piece, and use efficient methods (reduce weight, size, etc), that it would be much less serviceable over its lifetime. "We want to get to 1,000 moving parts, fewer than a car." This is why subassemblies of cars are so expensive, even if you only need to replace a small part of one assembly.
- jessriedel 9y ago> I'm not sure that trying to 3d print the whole thing will turn out. Why? Because you need replaceable parts. You need to be able to tear down, inspect, and replace parts as each part of the rocket has a different lifetime. If you make the rocket as one giant piece, and use efficient methods (reduce weight, size, etc), that it would be much less serviceable over its lifetime. I think the idea is to 3D print parts that are currently welded together. I don't see anywhere that they are planning to print as one piece anything that is ever disassembled with current practices.
- cbanek 9y ago> I think the idea is to 3D print parts that are currently welded together. I don't see anywhere that they are planning to print as one piece anything that is ever disassembled with current practices. I would agree that 3d printing smaller parts and putting them together by hand seems more reasonable, but I don't get the impression that is what they're doing (but it's hard to tell from the article). This is what led me to that conclusion: "Ellis and Noone say a handful of the arms can work together to create the rocket’s entire body as a single piece, guided by custom software that monitors their speed and the metal’s integrity." Entire body - single piece. I don't hear any talk of welding or putting it together (which would involve multiple pieces). Also just as a point of reference, making the bodies or the fuel tank is actually the easier part. It's either metal or carbon fiber. What takes a long time is assembling complex engines, and getting the whole thing together (including wiring).
- abledon 9y agoThey have a fricking PROTOSS[1] logo in their factory (3:22). That is Awesome! Seeing how the protoss warped in objects from another spot... I guess to them 3D printing is the precursor to that. [1]http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/thumb/e/e4/ProtossIcon.png/200px-ProtossIcon.png http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/thumb/e/e4/Protoss...
- josinalvo 9y agoYou got hit by teamliquid's anti hotlinking filter
- trumpownsyou420 9y agooh wow, it's almost like opening in a new tab bypasses this!
- visarga 9y agoNot nice for teamliquid's PR.
- nostalgiac 9y agoOpen the link in incognito, or just hit enter on the address bar again so the referrer is removed and it's a direct resource request. (refresh won't work).
- KGIII 9y agoFor those of us who aren't gamers... That appears to be a race in the game known as StarCraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_of_StarCraft#Protoss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_of_StarCraft#Protoss
- visarga 9y agoAthos, Protoss and Aramis? ...I'll show myself out.
- rdl 9y agoAfter watching https://www.youtube.com/user/AgentJayZ https://www.youtube.com/user/AgentJayZ videos (a guy in Canada who works for/owns an industrial/military turbine engine refurbishment shop and publishes great videos on a lot of the details), I've thought about trying to 3d print an inefficient, cold, boring, small jet turbine -- I know GE has already done a reasonable job of it, but making one which can be made at the lowest possible cost and skill level as a learning experience would be interesting. Unfortunately the machines are still a bit too expensive for recreational use.
- lucaspiller 9y agoShapeways are a printer service, with a whole bunch of materials including metals that are rare on consumer machines. However one of the advantages of 3D printing is you can create rapid prototypes - if you need to order and wait for someone else to make your model you lose that. https://www.shapeways.com/materials https://www.shapeways.com/materials
- jacobolus 9y agoYou can’t print anything like a jet engine with Shapeways. Their metal print options are designed for stuff like custom jewelry.
- rdl 9y agoI was thinking something like: https://www.ge.com/reports/post/118394013625/these-engineers-3d-printed-a-mini-jet-engine-then/ https://www.ge.com/reports/post/118394013625/these-engineers... I think you can do a crappy jet engine out of boring sintered stainless steel (316L), barely. Particularly if you could throw in some basic stuff from McMaster-Carr (seals/bearings/etc.)
- Animats 9y agoSpace-X makes the Dragon engine block by 3D printing. It makes sense. Rocket engines are mostly a big single piece with lots of internal voids. The fuel is used as a coolant, so there are channels inside the engine bell and some other sections. It's mostly plumbing. That's the kind of part where 3D printing is useful. Making a big object with internal plumbing out of multiple parts is a fabrication headache. NASA's engines have vast amounts of welding work in them. High-pressure joints are always a problem. Making something with few or no joints is just better. It still has to be inspected, but that's what industrial-sized CAT scanners are for. (Most of the real-world problems in both rockets and nuclear power involve plumbing and welding.)
- raverbashing 9y ago"It makes sense" in a way yes In other ways it doesn't (depending on the techniques). Things like metallurgical resistance, defect creation and tolerances
- ygra 9y agoElon recently noted that Raptor (unlike SuperDraco) won't be fully 3D-printed. It will have 3D-printed parts, but most of the engine will be machined. I guess for a larger engine the things you mentioned have to be more tightly controlled to be able to print the whole engine. Might also be a cost issue as size increases, I guess.
- chinathrow 9y agoAlso, build size and volume is still a constraint in metal 3d printing these days.
- robotresearcher 9y agoSure, but on the other hand in 3D printing everything is a joint/weld.
- alex_duf 9y ago
- glenngillen 9y agoARC Engines were one of the companies graduating at the recent TechStars demo day in Adelaide. As another commenter pointed out it seems much of the innovation is the improvements you can make to the internal chamber design through 3D printing. I also gather they’re onto (at least) their second generation of working rocket http://arc-engines.com http://arc-engines.com
- ricardobeat 9y agoWarning: article behind a paywall.
- Ice_cream_suit 9y agoNorth Korea now use filament winding machines to make lightweight, long range airframes for it's rockets and ICBMS. It takes large spools of advanced composite filaments as the input and outputs airframes. Impressive for such an impoverished nation. http://www.38north.org/2017/08/melleman082517/ http://www.38north.org/2017/08/melleman082517/ http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1203086/wound-filament-airframes/ http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1203086/wound-filamen... http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/23/asia/north-korea-missile-program-photos/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/23/asia/north-korea-missile-p...
- gaetanomarano 9y agothe most interesting part of the project is the engine ::: x.co/newlab
- imglorp 9y agoIs this spam?
- Gertig 9y agoThe next step towards Von Neumann Probes! https://futurism.com/von-neumann-probe/ https://futurism.com/von-neumann-probe/