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Ken Cooper: What we've got

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here is the latest in direct

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metal 3-D printing, if you

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will. We call it additive

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manufacturing now. It's the

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official term. What it is,

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it takes fine layers of metal

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powder and welds those

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together with a laser beam

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to fuse a three-dimensional

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object right from a computer

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file. It's like artistic

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welding, if you will. Selective

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Laser Melting is the official

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term on the patent. That kind

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of describes what's going on.

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You are selectively melting

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the powder and wherever the

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laser touches it turns to

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solid and the rest of it stays

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powder that you dump out

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afterwards. Right now, we're

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trying to qualify this to

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build rocket motor parts.

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Basically, what additive

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manufacturing gives you is the

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ability to build very complex

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shapes that couldn't be built

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other ways or just to simplify

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building complex shapes. It

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really doesn't care about the

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geometry. Really the deciding

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factor in whether the machine

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can do it or not is the size

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of the part. We wanted to have

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the best technology out there

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because we are shooting to put

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these into human-rated rocket

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systems.

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Andy Hardin: When we build parts,

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we go through a lot of tests, a

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lot of inspection. We do a lot

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of engineering builds first to

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make sure we have the process

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wrung out. There's always weld

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problems that you have to deal

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with and there's going to be

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problems with this that we'll

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have to work out, too, but this

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has the potential to eliminate

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a lot of those problems and it

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has the potential to reduce the

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cost by as much as half in some

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cases on a lot of parts. Everybody

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was really excited and now it's

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time to start the real work,

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which is making parts and building

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the material properties, getting