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we've come a long way since those star

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trek days of just pretending to build

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things in space the reality is that a 3d

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printer has worked on the space station

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and now it's getting us closer to

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building the tools we need for a journey

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to mars

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back in november of 2014

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main space and nasa marshall began the

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first set of prints and that i went down

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history as the first thing ever

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manufactured off planet earth it's a

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very interesting

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feeling to

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you know to know that we were part of

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this big effort

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to to do something that has been talked

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about for decades it's been science

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fiction wrote about manufacturing in

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space even before nasa started looking

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at it and then to be able to come in and

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and just be a part of an effort like

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that is just amazing so how has it

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worked

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did

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a lot of that is is a testament to the

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work that went into it before we

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launched so we did a flight

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opportunities program with nasa to fly

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the printers in zero gravity on

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parabolic aircraft flights so we knew

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that the technology had a pretty good

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chance of working and once we got on

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station we started doing a test campaign

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where we printed a lot of different

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types of

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print articles that are now back on the

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ground and we're putting them through

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tests and learning about the differences

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between manufacturing and microgravity

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compared to earth yeah that's what i was

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going to ask is it that much different

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than 3d printing here on earth

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so at this point we we have not found

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any significant differences in the way

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our our printers are performing

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all that really means is that we that

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we're getting nominal operation out of

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our our machine so we've designed it to

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work in microgravity and the tests are

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showing that indeed it does work in

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microgravity what are some of the

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impressive things you've printed

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my favorite thing by far that we've

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printed is a ratchet and you can

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you can find some really nice images of

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astronaut butch wilmore holding his

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ratchet on the space station and that's

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a part that has

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multiple parts inside there's a gear and

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it's an actual ratcheting tool it's

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rated torque rated for nasa and

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everything that picture was taken two

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hours after we sent the digital file of

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the tool to the printer so from in two

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hours we

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uplinked the instructions to a 3d

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printer on the space station printed the

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tool out and then butch is holding it in

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his hand and that's

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that is there's no absolutely no other

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way to get something into the space

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station that quickly even if that tool

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was launched on a rocket at the same

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time that we sent the the digital file

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it would have been days later that it

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would have been unpacked and and usable

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what we've done is we've demonstrated

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that in an exploration mission

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we can actually use this technology and

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rely on it and as we move forward we'll

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continue to demonstrate and build

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confidence this was

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obviously a test it's obviously the

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beginning of a much bigger picture so we

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have a lot of work to do

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and when i say we i mean main space and

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nasa together understanding how this

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works and building out new tests and

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really building confidence in the whole

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process

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really at the end of the day it's about