- Speaker #0
It's not the most attractive thing, it's not a new nuclear reactor, it's not a new rocket system. It is bricks, it is basic stuff, but it's what's required. We think it's going to be really important in the future. Whoever masters this will open up the solar system.
- Speaker #1
It's time to put another piece in this big space puzzle that we call Have We Gone to Mars? And it's an incredibly content-rich puzzle with different motifs and themes, but that hangs together and is framed by this interest for space that we all share. Yes,
- Speaker #2
you could almost see it as a third puzzle.
- Speaker #1
Today we are going to talk about 3D printing, AM, Additive Manufacturing, or additive manufacturing as we can also call it. And there are a few different techniques. We will soon talk about how we can use AM to build, among other things, rocket parts to a fraction of the cost and time it takes with the methods we have used before. But first, I think we should look a little further.
- Speaker #2
Right? Because if we are to be able to colonize the moon and Mars in a reasonable way, we will have to build things on site. Tools, landing lanes, homesteads. It would be best if we could build robots on site that could build new robots on site. But since our Neumann machine is a bit ahead of its time, we have to work with what we have.
- Speaker #1
And of course we do.
- Speaker #2
Okay, so let's start with the 3D printing. What exactly is it you're experimenting on?
- Speaker #0
Sure. So one of the big questions we face when we explore beyond low Earth orbit is logistics. How do you support yourself? How do you survive? How do you make your mission more feasible as you go further into space? Right now on the station, you get everything from Earth. But as you go further into space, it becomes harder and harder to maintain that logistical chain. 3D printing is one of the cool ideas that's been around for the last few decades. maybe it might be a way for being able to produce tools and equipment in situ. So rather than getting it sent to you from Earth, you now can find resources around you that you could potentially 3D print with and to produce equipment that you might need for your mission when you get there. So you no longer need to phone home and ask for a spanner. You can maybe make a spanner yourself or, you know, make different bits and pieces using the equipment like 3D printers on board your spacecraft.
- Speaker #2
We've done a lot of 3D printing on Earth before, so we know that we can do a lot. But what? can you do if you go to the moon?
- Speaker #0
So one of the cool ideas we've been looking into here is can you 3D print with the lunar regolith? So this lunar regolith is kind of like soil you find everywhere across the surface of the moon. It's ubiquitous, it's everywhere. And we've always asked ourselves, could you take this powder material, could you process it and then actually print with it? And that would be a really great way of reducing the amount of mass you would need to bring with you because you could just use the material you find in situ to enable your missions. So... This is what we've been looking into. We've been taking regular material, we've been printing it directly, we've also been mixing with other materials to see if we can make composites, stronger materials using this. And basically taking this material... processing it slightly and then 3D printing with it to produce parts to show that it's actually feasible as a technology. And it is. We've actually demonstrated it here. So it's not just science fiction. It's actually something we can actually genuinely do.
- Speaker #2
And the regolith itself, do you use real regolith from the Moon or do you manufacture it here in some way?
- Speaker #0
So sadly we don't have access to the real regolith from the Moon because only about 400 kilos of that was brought back during the Apollo missions. So we have to use what's called regolith simulant. So we know that the Moon and the Earth share geological history. And that means that there's a similarity between parts of the Moon and parts of locations here on Earth. So we go to locations here on Earth that have a kind of volcanic character. We can extract a particular material there, we can process it and turn it into what we call a simulant, which is very close, analogue to the real stuff that you find on the Moon. And this is what we use for our testing because we have to go through hundreds and hundreds of kilos or even tons of material to do these kind of experiments. You'd never get the real stuff from NASA for that because that's kept under special protections.
- Speaker #2
And how is it different from the real stuff?
- Speaker #0
It's geologically different of course because while the Moon and the Earth share a bit of a history, here on Earth everything, nearly everything's been touched by the hydrological cycle. So that basically means like water has nearly got onto everything, air has got into everything, even the center of our planet is wet by some metrics. So everything is altered slightly. So you will find certain chemicals, certain compounds in the similar material that are very unlikely to be existing on the on the real regolith on the surface of the Moon. Also, the shape of the particles is different. So on the Moon, there's no wind, there's no water flowing, so that means that it's never been eroded. So whenever the particles are produced there, they tend to be very sharp and jagged, very like glass almost. But here on Earth, everything gets hit by the wind, a little bit eroded by water, so the particles tend to be different shapes. This affects a little bit the mechanical behavior of the particles. So we have to accept that they are similant. is never going to be as good as the real stuff, but it's good enough to give us confidence that what we do here on Earth should transfer quite well to what we would do on the Moon.
- Speaker #2
And also when you get to make the 3D printing on the Moon, the gravity will not be the same as here. So how do you simulate that when you try it here?
- Speaker #0
So we found from a few experiments, things like 3D printing in 1 sixth gravity, which is what you'd find on the Moon, doesn't really make a huge impact on the performance of the materials. The way we tested it here is we actually had a 3D printer and we flew it on board a parabolic flight. So we had it experiencing microgravity and hypergravity. And you can see some variations, yes, but not enough to stop the system from actually working. So our feeling is that it should be quite feasible to 3D print in 1-6th gravity. There'll be a few mechanical tricks you have to do to make sure everything's perfect, but overall you shouldn't really encounter too many issues transferring. Earth technology to the moon, gravity shouldn't be a big issue, we hope. One of the other big challenges on the moon, of course, is where do you get your energy from? So we're always looking into new ideas for how you can support yourself energy-wise. We're looking into technologies like fuel cell technology. So you can use fuel cells in the moon to help support your night missions, for example, where you pass for longer periods than just two weeks, you end up in lunar night. You need to be able to survive that. And this is one of the big challenges. We're also looking into... technologies like using Regulit as a thermal energy storage medium. So one idea is you can pile up big heaps of Regulit and use it as a kind of thermal reservoir. And then when the sun goes down, you can tap that reservoir to get electricity out of it so you can keep yourself sustained during the dark night period. So these are all fairly low-tier ideas, low-technology development ideas, and we're very interested to see how we can develop them further so we can... augment our ability to survive harsher conditions on the moon.
- Speaker #2
And do you only do research here for 3D printing on the moon? Or do you also look at Mars and other places in the galaxy?
- Speaker #0
So this is a really nice thing about a lot of the processes and techniques that we're looking into here, is that they apply nicely on the moon, but they also apply just as well on Mars. So we always have a kind of idea of using the moon as a testing ground for 3D printing things in the future. It would be useful to test things there. But of course, a lot of this technology will transfer very nicely over to Mars. So for example, you will find sand and regolith on Mars as well. So there's no reason why you couldn't use the same processes that we're using on the Moon there on Mars. You also have additionally new processes on Mars. For example, there could be the presence of water. This is very nice. This could open up new opportunities for using water as a binder material to make better bricks, for example, like we do here on Earth. It's nice and there is a very nice clear path from what we do on the Moon to what could be done on Mars and most of our technologies are applicable to both locations.
- Speaker #2
When will we see the first 3D printer on the moon?
- Speaker #0
I'm hoping sooner rather than later. So I'm really pushing to see if we can come up with a payload concept that we can fly either on an ESA mission or perhaps maybe on a commercial mission in the near future, which would demonstrate that it's possible to take Regolith in, produce something with it, and then produce a product at the end of it. And that could be a 3D printing process. It could be something else. But this would be really exciting for us because, again, We feel there's a great value in showing people a demonstration of this capability. So the first demonstration would be relatively simple we feel, but we would hope it would give mission planners confidence that this works and then they could start using it more in their future mission concepts and develop it further. So I'm hoping in the next 10 years you might see a payload on the Moon that would actually produce something like a brick or a small part that was 3D printed or some other similar process.
- Speaker #2
So what kind of things can you 3D print? Right,
- Speaker #0
so we're looking into everything from really small parts to really, really big parts. So for really small parts we're thinking things like filters, small screws, containers, boxes, this kind of stuff. Things that are important for missions and sometimes can be a little bit hard to get. But we're also scaling it up to large scale things. So could you produce a giant brick on the moon? This brick could be used for radiation shielding or it could be used as part of a landing pad or part of a habitation infrastructure. So it's really a question of scaling from small things to really large things. For small things we find things like 3D printers are really good because we have a lot of experience with them. For big things we're looking into things like molding and other technologies like microwave processing or direct solar light where we focus sunlight and build things that way. These are the kind of ideas we're exploring there. And all these things we look into holistically here at the agency.
- Speaker #2
Except for 3D printing, you also mentioned other stuff you're experimenting on here. So can you give us some more examples?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. So 3D printing is one approach, of course, and it's a very interesting one. But we're also looking into more conventional approaches. We're looking into technology like sintering, like pressing, and also very novel ideas like microwaving. So what happens if you put regulars inside a microwave? It's a very interesting experiment. Don't try it at home, but it does work and you can actually melt regular very efficiently using technologies like microwave. So we're trying to develop expertise across all these different processes to see which one makes the most sense for different use cases whenever we go to the moon. So if you want to make a giant brick, for example, 3D printing may not be the best process. But using a conventional sintering technique or a pressing technique might be a better way to do it. And this is the kind of trade off that we have to do. and this is the kind of technology development we have to do to make better trade-offs in the future. So, you know, we need to give people the capability in the future that they can look around them whenever they get to somewhere like the moon or Mars or even further and see what resources are there and say, okay, now I need to build an infrastructure. I need to build a house. I need to build a landing pad. I need to take this resource and mix it with this technology and produce this result. We need to give them that capability. Right now, it's not quite there. So these are all projects that we're doing to develop and make it available for the future missions.
- Speaker #2
Who is it that comes to you at the most time and says, okay, we would like to try this? Is it the astronauts who give you ideas, or is it scientists or the industry? Who's behind all the wishes?
- Speaker #0
A lot of it's all three. So, for example, the astronauts. I mean, we don't want our astronauts getting irradiated on the surface of the moon. So one of the big challenges, how can we protect them for long periods of time on the moon's surface? Shielding is an obvious solution. Okay, do you bring hundreds of tons of lead with you to protect your astronauts? it's not really very feasible. Our idea is like we'll use the regolith that's there to produce radiation shielding so the guys can stay there for longer periods. That's us addressing a human spaceflight challenge using materials that you would find locally. We get ideas from commercial entities too. People have said, would this work? You know, they come to us and they ask for our expertise. And then we work with them and we say, actually, yes, your pressing technique that you've developed for pressing aluminum, for example, actually transfers very well to potentially a spaceflight operation. and then also research groups. Students and researchers are always fascinated by space. They're a constant well of innovation. So we get loads of ideas coming to us, asking us, would this work, or can we work together on this and see if it actually can be progressed? And we're very open to that because we want to make sure that we give them the expertise of the agency so that they understand the challenges properly and can actually see a useful use case, not just making rubbish for no need.
- Speaker #2
So then the three dips. 3D printers. How big are they? How big things can you make?
- Speaker #0
So at the moment, we're mostly working with small things because we're still working out the feasibility of ideas, testing them at small scale. And this is how we as scientists and engineers progress. We start things small and then we scale things up. But in principle, most of the work that we're doing could be scaled to very large sizes. So there really is no limit. We've already seen here on Earth, terrestrially, very large 3D printers. You've seen things like robotic arms that can essentially extrude or 3D print that way. We've seen mobile gantries that can move around at large scale and print materials that way. So in principle, there should be no real limitation on the scaling size. The bigger question is how much mass can you get to the moon? You have to bring your printer with you or your system with you. This is a question that future missions will have to address. But from a technological feasibility perspective, we are very confident that it is possible to 3D print on the moon and from very small scales to very large scales.
- Speaker #2
But we're not. where we can 3D print a 3D printer on the moon?
- Speaker #0
Sadly not. There's always a few bits you're always missing. I mean, we love using commercial 3D printers here on Earth. We use these Prusa models, for example, that are very common in the kind of community of 3D printers. And the great thing about these models is a lot of them you can actually 3D print the parts for the next 3D printer, so they can almost become self-sustaining, but never 100%. There's always little parts you have to bring with you. For example, the electronics board, the motors, some control aspects. These things were not at the stage of being able to replicate with an existing 3D printer. So yes, even if you went to the moon, maybe some parts of it you could... print, but other parts you'd have to bring with you still. We're not quite there yet.
- Speaker #2
But we can soon print half of a von Neumann robot.
- Speaker #0
Exactly. I mean, if you're looking at the von Neumann architecture, then we're getting closer, but we're still not quite there yet. I'd say half is not an unreasonable number, but still needs more work to reach 100%, you know, a lot more work.
- Speaker #2
Yes, but could you print electronics in some way?
- Speaker #0
So it's a really nice question. It's difficult to do it of course, but we are looking into it. So even here in this lab actually one of my colleagues here, Audrey, who's sitting across from me, she's working on the question of can you actually print or deposit photovoltaic material onto regolith? So can you actually produce a solar cell using regolith as perhaps a substrate? That's something we're actively asking this question, can it be done? that's an electronics component, you know. More elaborate version of that would be, could you get the material you need for a solar cell from the regolith, process it, and then produce your solar cell in situ? In which case then you could start to scale up your energy infrastructure just by using local resources. Very interesting questions. Challenging work to do. So I won't give you a yes or no answer just yet, but we hope that this can be demonstrated and we're actually working on some of this right now here in this workshop.
- Speaker #2
And if that would work, that would change everything for building stuff on the moon.
- Speaker #0
Right. I mean, it's part of a longer vision, which is that the question we ask ourselves is, if you go to these places, you need to be able to kickstart your industrial capability. You need to find what resources are there and use them to make this happen. And this is how our ancestors did exploration. They arrived in a new location and look around. They'd find what resources they could and they built up their infrastructure and capability. We need to get into that kind of paradigm going forward. So that whenever we go to Mars. The first few missions will obviously have logistic support from Earth, but then eventually we would like to maybe make it self-sustaining. So you can maybe start extracting the iron from the Martian soil and maybe start producing parts from that and move your way towards more complicated elements like electronics. Then you've created a self-sustaining capability, which is the kind of holy grail of exploration.
- Speaker #1
Really a holy grail. Imagine a future where we send robots that build up a whole city for us on Mars, and then it's there, ready when we get there.
- Speaker #2
Yes, and there are already some robots on Mars, and they're cool in their own way. But unfortunately they don't build anything. But they do a lot of other exciting things, so we'll come back to that in a future episode and talk more about it.
- Speaker #1
And if you want to know more about what Aiden and his team are doing at ESA, go to havioktimarschen.se. There you'll find a film where we talk more with him, and he shows up a little from the lab.
- Speaker #2
Yes, but wait until you've listened to this episode. Because now we're going to talk about 3D printing on Earth for the universe.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Edvin Rezebo is the CEO of Amexi, a company specialized in additive manufacturing in metal. And we're making a series about space. So, Edvin, what are you doing at Amexi that has brought us here?
- Speaker #3
We work together with a company called Python Space, which works to pioneer the Swedish space side when it comes to making its own rocket and being able to send it to Sweden. We cooperate with them on 3D printing, among other things, the rocket engines.
- Speaker #2
So it's 3D printing you're working on here. Tell us a little more about that. What is it that you do at Wamexi?
- Speaker #3
We are specialized in manufacturing details with the help of 3D printing in metal. We work with both product design, the production process and everything that needs to happen with a product after it is 3D printed. Heat treatment, cutting processing, material analysis. There are so many things that need to come together to actually produce a good product. can be used in its intended purpose. If it is so that it goes out on the roads, or it goes up into space, it goes down into the water. So, that's what we have specialized in.
- Speaker #2
What kind of metals do you use when you work with 3D printing?
- Speaker #3
So, the metal we use the most is aluminum. And after aluminum, it's probably titanium and then stainless steel. ...and different types of nickel base bearings since number four.
- Speaker #2
When did 3D printing products start in this way? And what is it that you... Air Sitter
- Speaker #3
When we started to reverse the band to this technique, it started to become industrially relevant. In the mid-90s, a process was introduced with carbon-acid lasers and metal powder. This was used to make the small metal powders clump together and create a porous structure. This was then infiltrated with bronze to get it to be more transparent. and to make the density good enough to be able to use it for tools and fixtures and such things. But in 1996, this process was patented, where they combined fiber laser that had come out and just this melting metal powder layer by layer. And then you could start getting a solid metal out of the process, which meant that the mechanical properties were good enough to actually use this in real products. Some of the people who were involved in this project and why it could give great opportunities were, among other things, Flyg och Rymd, who saw that even complex, expensive and difficult to process materials could be designed quite organically and easily in CAD and then 3D printed. And that was the start of the journey. We're talking early 2000, around 2000 and onwards. And then it was, or has been for many, many years for those who were earlier in this, that actually, well... I understand how to reach the right quality, how the machines should be able to be so productive so that there is some form of economic, what should I say, reason to produce. So that has been the, let's say, lead motive for the industry to get the quality, get the cost down and get a repeatability that is something to have.
- Speaker #2
And again, a little more, what is it that you... ...except what you can do here that will be better when 3D printed than... than to give space or how you did it before?
- Speaker #3
We usually worry a lot about this, that you get a greater design freedom. You can design more for weight optimization, you can design more for performance, if you have different flows that should go next to each other or if you want two flows to go together and homogenize themselves in a good way or that you actually... If you want to reduce the cost of your material production, this technology opens up for a different perspective. If we look back in time, it has been about starting from a very bulky subject and then how to remove the material we don't need. This technology gives us the opportunity to think about the function we are after, what we want our product to achieve. and use that as a baseline. And that's really a reversed thinking from the traditional thinking and what was learned earlier. And that's something we've seen. What makes this better? It's when we actually take advantage of the strengths that the technique has from the beginning. Not to try to replace... A sound product 1 to 1 or replace a milled product or a rolled product 1 to 1. You have to find these use cases where the technique is really strong. And there it is very strong. And if we compare it with outstretched thin plate components and such, then this technique has no great advantage to come with if we start talking about volume and series.
- Speaker #2
But where you have something to come with, as you say, is flight, space. Where you should have a certain type of component. What can it be? What are you producing?
- Speaker #3
As mentioned earlier, rocket engines. We mean the nozzle part of the rocket engine. Where you have many thin channels that go along with the entire mantle on the component. Where you want to shoot in the fuel and get it controlled and controlled in a good way. It's one area, and we see many other companies that use it. Turbopumpers is also an area where the technology works very well. When it comes to satellites and that type of applications, it's more like brackets to attach things. It can take away a lot of weight. It can also be cooling channels or cooling functions that you want to achieve. It works a little differently on things that go up in space, that you don't have any active cooling in the way that we have with liquids and such on Earth. Still, Freeforms can create these volumes and make sure that they are as effective as possible, which then really helps to transport heat or cooling in the direction you want.
- Speaker #2
In manufacturing, what is the difference between making a part of a rocket engine in 3D compared to when you made it earlier in a traditional way?
- Speaker #3
I think the two very interesting aspects of it are the lead time, that you can get it out very quickly, but also that you consolidate a lot of individual details to an object. And it reduces the number of potential error sources and it also makes it possible to get the details out much faster. So you can go from maybe a hundred loose components to one single object that you get out on. And of course, if you print a larger rocket nozzle or something, we might talk about...
- Speaker #0
Ja, en veckas sprintning. Men en vecka versus nio månaders tillverkning. Och jag menar att time to market är extremt viktigt även i rymdbranschen idag. För det finns en sån otroligt stor backlog på saker som ska upp i form av satelliter och annat.
- Speaker #1
Det blev man ju nyfiken på. Vi säger tidigare att bygga den här... Vi tar raketen för den är ett bra exempel som tidigare bestod av kanske hundratals delar. Det är ju ett ganska komplext bygge med någonting som har det. Hur kollar man att den är exakt som den ska inuti? Eftersom du kan ju inte se i den då såklart. Det är ingenting du bygger ihop efterhand. Så hur går själva den testen till?
- Speaker #0
Så en process som vi har använt är 3D-röntgen. Du ställer objektet på ett roterande bord. Och sen så roterar det 360 grader. Och så tar röntgenmaskinen massor med tvådimensionella bilder. som då byggs ihop till en tredimensionell fil där du ser inuti materialet. Så har du invändiga kanaler och du har andra saker så kan du zooma runt på datorn och titta in och se. Du kan leta efter porer, du kan leta efter sprickor. Men sen lite beroende på vad det är du tittar efter om du... Ska jag kolla traditionella svetsar och sådana saker då gör du kanske någon form av ultraljud eller så och tittar på det. Det är lite svårare på 3D-printade objekt framförallt då när du har flera väggar. Det vill säga du har kanske... kanaler som går om vartannat och så vidare och kunna gå in och titta på det här på ett bra sätt och förstå vad det är man tittar på för du tappar lite upplösning och sådana saker varje gång du penetrerar någon ny vägg. Så det gör att man behöver verkligen förstå hur man ska analysera datan också och då är det viktigt att jobba med någon som verkligen kan själva röntgensidan.
- Speaker #1
Hur går det till? Hur funkar själva
- Speaker #0
3D-printingen? Den typen av 3D-printing som vi håller på med fungerar så att du sprider ut ett tunt lager med metallpulver. Så ett jämnt tunt lager över en byggplatta. Och sen så kommer en fiberlaser ner också och smälter exakt den tvådimensionella delen av det tredimensionella objektet som du har gjort. Egentligen slarvigt sagt så kan man säga att du tar en CAD-modell. och du matar in den i maskinen uppdelad i två dimensionella tunna lager. Och det blir egentligen de här två dimensionella lagren som bygger upp det tredimensionella objektet. Så om man tänker sig att det du ser på datorskärmen som 3D, där tar maskinen och delar upp i 2D och sen så printas varje sådant tvådimensionellt lager. Och i slutändan så har alla de här... Tvådimensionella ytorna skapat det tredimensionella objektet. Det är egentligen grundprincipen för alla industriella 3D-printingsprocesser. Just det att där du utgår från ett tredimensionellt objekt, du slajsar det i tvådimensionella lager och maskinen bygger det lager för lager. Det är egentligen definitionen för industriell 3D-printing. Det är som sagt beroende på... Vad det är för material beroende på hur stort objektet är så pratar vi alltså i den processen som vi jobbar med 3D-printing i alltifrån. 3-4 timmar till kanske 200 timmar beroende på storlek och komplexitet. Det är det som styr själva printtiden. Men de efterföljande stegen med värmebehandling, skärande, bearbetning det är ju en tid i det också. Pratar vi total ledtid och får fram en produkt så är det väldigt produktspecifikt. Men vi brukar säga någonstans mellan 3-6 veckor beroende på komplexitet.
- Speaker #1
Då för att förklara detta för mig själv och den som lyssnar. Ungefär som vi säger att vi tar ett äpple och skivar det och lägger det som boksidor uppe på varandra. Hur många lager skulle då ett äpple innehålla? Hur tunna är de här tvådimensionella lagerna som ni lägger på varandra?
- Speaker #0
Så beroende på lite grann. Vi bygger lager som är mellan 30 till 120 mikron. Så en hundradel millimeter i princip. Och... Om du då tänker dig ett äpple och så delar du det i nästan en hundradels eller en tiondels millimeters tjocka lager så blir det ganska många lager av det här äpplet. Så ett objekt som är stort som ett äpple så pratar vi kanske 2000 lager i och ta beroende på äpplet. Så det är väldigt tunna lager. Och som sagt, ska man bygga... Väldigt höga, eller väldigt höga objekt, nu ska man ju sätta det i paritet till den processen vi jobbar med. När vi pratar väldigt höga objekt så är vi någonstans kanske en meter eller någon halv meter höga. Det är så stort som det går att bygga idag på något vettigt sätt. Och då är det bara att räkna baklänges på det att det blir ganska många lager.
- Speaker #1
Vilka svårigheter har ni om man bygger för rymden? Vad är de stora utmaningarna där?
- Speaker #0
Det är ju framförallt att leva upp till de specifika kraven som finns för rymden. Vi måste kunna bevisa vilken reflektivitet och absorption vi har i materialen. Vilket är någonting som normalt sett, det är inga kunder som efterfrågar det. Så fort det är ett nytt material och... För att göra ny design kring det här materialet så behöver vi titta på sådana saker och göra mycket specifik provning. Så det är alltså att mot de här specifika rymdekraven så behöver vi hela tiden bevisa att det här materialet eller den här produkten lever verkligen upp till det. Och då behöver vi ibland, som sagt, nu ska vi ha en ny typ av utbehandling. Då får vi faktiskt göra några tester med det. Och sen så kanske skära upp, titta på detaljen, göra 3D-röntgen, förstå insidan utan att behöva ta sönder objektet. Och faktiskt kunna, med hjälp av all den här datan som vi genererar, med alla bilder som vi har på de tvådimensionella lagren i maskinen, materialprovning, ytbehandlingsprover, faktiskt bygga ihop en färdig datafil som säger att Och enligt de här kraven som finns så kan vi visa från A till Ö att produkten faktiskt lever upp till de kraven.
- Speaker #1
Vad kostar en 3D-printad grej?
- Speaker #0
Ja, det är ju väldigt olika. För det är ju, jag menar, tittar vi oftast bara på kostnaden för att printa objektet så är det inte alltid att det är det största. Utan det kan vara efterföljande provning eller väldigt komplex skärande bearbetning. Men... Liksom i snitt säga att vi skulle printa ditt äpple Och bara kostnaden för att printa ditt äpple i aluminium Skulle kanske vara ett äpple då för Någonstans 4-5 tusen I och ta
- Speaker #1
Det var inte så farligt tycker jag. Men då testar ni inte det till mig att det håller.
- Speaker #0
Nej, då får det äpplet vara som det är.
- Speaker #1
Ja, för 4-5 tusen så kan jag absolut låta äpplet vara som det är.
- Speaker #2
Som ni förstår så är det inte själva 3D-printingen i sig som kostar supermycket. Även om kanske 5 tusen för ett aluminiumäpple är mer än vad jag hade betalat. Alltså... Det är på testningen och kontrollen efteråt att allt funkar som det ska. Det är där den stora kostnaden ligger.
- Speaker #1
Ett arbetssätt som gör att en raketmotordel tar en vecka att tillverka istället för flera månader. Det sparar en massa pengar testningen till trots. För att inte prata om tiden då. Den här tekniken tar oss garanterat snabbare ut i omloppsbana. Till månen och vidare mot Mars.
- Speaker #2
Ja, och just den här raketmotorn som man printar på Amexi är för den svenska rakettillverkaren Python Space. De kan du höra mer om i tidigare avsnitt av den här serien. Och snart så kommer vi att prata mer med dem om hur det går.
- Speaker #1
Ja, de började sin tillverkning i USA. Men sedan början av det här året har de också en anläggning för rakettillverkning i Nackastrand här i Stockholm. Så snart, snart, snart har vi förhoppningsvis en svensk raket tillverkad i Sverige att skjuta upp i omdomsbana. Förslagsvis från S-Range.
- Speaker #2
Ja, det låter som ljuvmusik i mina öron. Precis som den vi hör h��r i bakgrunden. Den är skriven av Armin Pennek.
- Speaker #1
Jag heter Marcus Pettersson.
- Speaker #2
Jag heter Susanna Levenhaupt.
- Speaker #1
Har vi åkt till Marsen? Görs på Beppo av Rundfunk Media i samarbete med SAD.
