You can find them basically anywhere online; name brand is the 3Doodler but there are many that are cheaper and less bulky. I would recommend a generic one rather than the 3Doodler
This is the future people! We are living in the future. To hell with those flying cars, jet packs and hover boards... we can draw in three dimensions.
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Engineers on Earth can design a wrench and now email it to the ISS where they can print one of their own!
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I see this being used largely for artistic endeavors. (nothing wrong with that) But let's say you are tinkering with something (that you maybe shouldn't) and you lose/break a fiddly little, but important part... you can now draw up your own!
The only problem currently with printing in space (assuming the space station doesn't spin to create gravity through centripetal force) is that as soon as a dot or line of plastic is printed it would float of so you would end up with a bunch of plastic bits floating around. The plastic would have to anchor on to the printing platform thing. But if that was solved it would be extremely convenient and would reduce the amount of things astronauts have to bring with them in the rocket flying them to the ISS and it would increase the space they have in the rocket as well.
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Also what is super cool is that there are going to be 3d printers commercially available soon that can print food. And I think that will be very useful for many people (especially if it becomes popular so the price goes down).
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Engineers on Earth can design a wrench and now email it to the ISS where they can print one of their own!
.
I see this being used largely for artistic endeavors. (nothing wrong with that) But let's say you are tinkering with something (that you maybe shouldn't) and you lose/break a fiddly little, but important part... you can now draw up your own!
.
Also what is super cool is that there are going to be 3d printers commercially available soon that can print food. And I think that will be very useful for many people (especially if it becomes popular so the price goes down).