Space exploration is hard.
And sometimes, ironic.
Arguably, the hardest part of space exploration is getting things to space in the first place. That’s because “space” is really just a fancy word for anything more than 100km away from Earth’s sea level (see Kármán Line). Because of this thing called gravity, it’s hard to put stuff there.
I co-founded Made In Space, Inc. to solve this problem by designing and building 3D printers for operation in space. With 3D printers in space, we’ll be able to upload objects electronically to space and “just push print” to have them pop out on demand.
Our first 3D printer was scheduled to launch to ISS today at 2:14 AM on SpaceX CRS-4. About 30 minutes before launch, bad weather forced the Launch Director scrub the launch and delay it until tomorrow.
Delaying the launch was the right decision. The irony though, of course, is that the entire point of our 3D printer is to get around precisely this problem.
Once our 3D printer is on the space station, we’ll be able to print out hardware in space faster than it can be launched. This will come in handy in quite a number of scenarios. Especially when rockets are delayed and the astronauts really need something up there.
Follow me on Twitter (@mikechen) for more updates on this launch, and 3D printing in space.
