Large Scale 3D Printing In Space
In 2011 German designer Markus Kayser built a machine called a Solar Sinter. It concentrates sunlight via a 3 foot by 5 foot Fresnel lens onto a box containing sand. The box moves a layer of sand in programmed patterns, allowing the 1600 degree Celsius beam to melt the sand in a controlled design. Once that pattern, or layer, is complete, another layer of sand is added and the process is repeated until a 3D object is created from fused sand.
A very similar machine could 3D print objects in orbit around the Earth or Moon or anywhere in space sufficient sunlight can be collected to melt stuff. At least out to the orbit of Mars and, perhaps, in the asteroid belt. It would have to be highly modified over Mr. Kayser’s design. For one thing, you don’t have the convenience of gravity holding down your bed of sand. Another thing … you don’t have sand.
The Fresnel lens will have to be replaced with mirrors simply because mirrors are cheaper, more rugged, and more flexible. The bed of the printer will have to be inside a centrifuge affair producing artificial gravity. Envision a large cylinder 80 feet in diameter and 300 feet long. It spins around its long axis. The printer head can travel the length of the cylinder or in a circular path inside the cylinder, or a flat path on a chord of some arc of the cylinder that is still far enough from the…
