NASA investing in self-building spaceship research by VR-Zone.com

NASA is funding research for a method that will let a spacecraft construct itself using built-in 3D printers, allowing potentially massive ships with a greater degree of complexity than has currently been possible.

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The US space agency has invested $100,000 in SpiderFab, a firm that is looking at the feasibility of launching a 3D printer with necessary materials into space, and getting it to construct a spaceship in the cosmos.

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The benefit of such an approach is that there would be no need to worry about designing the ship to withstand lift-off, which complicates current design processes and greatly increases the cost. Current ships also need to be able to fold up, given space limitations, which would not be an issue for a vehicle assembled in the heavens.

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The concept has so much potential that NASA believes such self-assembling ships could eventually be made to look for raw materials for assembly and repair in space itself, such as from asteroids or even the debris of broken satellites.

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The technology, if developed in a feasible way, could lead to self-constructing satellites, telescopes, spacecraft, and even gigantic space stations. Printers in a publisher's office on Earth might be printing science-fiction, but 3D printers in space could end up printing the real thing.

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Image Credit: Unlimited Tethers

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nasa-investing-in-self-building-spaceship-research/17197.html

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