Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

Rusakov · 2012-12-22 13:40:36

There has been a plethora of news about 3D printing (if you're unfamiliar with the topic, read the Wikipedia page). No doubt that there will still be limits to what you can reliably print out, but 3D printers are becoming more powerful by the year.

But what would it mean for a future Martian civilization?

There is no reliable way to prevent piracy. Indeed with the creation of mesh servers like Freedom Box it might become impossible to prevent it in the near future. This would be highly disruptive to traditional economies. And we don't even need to invoke piracy as something disruptive considering the idea of open-source hardware, something disruptive to existing economies would be bound to happen eventually.

What new economy would emerge from this? I'm not an economist, so I can't say for certain.

louis · 2012-12-22 15:19:16

3D printing can only be good for the Mars economy I would say. Essentially it means you have limitless engineering and design expertise available on the planet without having to import thousands of engineers and designers on to Mars at vast expense. It means the scaled down industrial infrastructure can be put in place more easily.

I've been tracking robotics developments recently. Google or You Tube on Asimo and Ecce to see the latest. It seems pretty clearly to me that within the next ten years or so we will have dependably functional humanoid robots that could substitute for humans e.g. in farm habitats on Mars, or in mining activities. It's possibly they might even be able to be adapted to work on the surface, given that the current Rover robots have arms that seem to function well in the extreme cold.

Last edited by louis (2012-12-23 04:50:19)

Rusakov · 2012-12-22 19:56:34

louis wrote:

3D printing can only be good for the Mars economy I would say. Essentially it means you have limitless engineering and design expertise available on the planet without having to import thousands of engineers and designers on to Mars at vast expense.

I doubt it would go that far. Sure it might reduce the number of people needed to make something, but you'll still need experts to help design things robustly.

louis · 2012-12-23 04:58:57

Rusakov wrote:

louis wrote:
3D printing can only be good for the Mars economy I would say. Essentially it means you have limitless engineering and design expertise available on the planet without having to import thousands of engineers and designers on to Mars at vast expense.
I doubt it would go that far. Sure it might reduce the number of people needed to make something, but you'll still need experts to help design things robustly.

You need experts there for the quick fix, certainly. But remember there is also virtual meeting technology coming onstream. An engineer on earth will be able to examine things in 3D almost as if they are there, although I would accept manipulation will be a little more difficult because of time lapse.

Number04 · 2013-01-18 10:11:14

I agree with louis.

What in means is you can greatly reduce the number of Engineers you need insitu. The people on Mars will need to be technically skilled, and an engineering background will be helpful. However, much of the initial design can be done in labs on earth. Crowd source solutions can also be implemented. In addition to lowering the amount of experts needed on the ground, the amount and diversity of objects will increase.

As for an economy, it will shift towards raw materials. For an earth example, you won't go to the shoe store and buy a finished pair of shoes. You will go to the store, buy the materials and pay for time with a specialist to custom fit a pair of shoes and make them in the store. For those who have the skills to make shoes at home, they can simply buy the materials.

The Martian impact will be people will spend their time getting raw resources while using off-planet talent to come up with new designs. Conversely, engineers on Mars can design things using the alien landscape as a test bed that could be novel on earth.

louis · 2013-01-18 18:25:13

Number04 wrote:

I agree with louis.
What in means is you can greatly reduce the number of Engineers you need insitu. The people on Mars will need to be technically skilled, and an engineering background will be helpful. However, much of the initial design can be done in labs on earth. Crowd source solutions can also be implemented. In addition to lowering the amount of experts needed on the ground, the amount and diversity of objects will increase.
As for an economy, it will shift towards raw materials. For an earth example, you won't go to the shoe store and buy a finished pair of shoes. You will go to the store, buy the materials and pay for time with a specialist to custom fit a pair of shoes and make them in the store. For those who have the skills to make shoes at home, they can simply buy the materials.
The Martian impact will be people will spend their time getting raw resources while using off-planet talent to come up with new designs. Conversely, engineers on Mars can design things using the alien landscape as a test bed that could be novel on earth.

I imagine Mars will be a fairly frugal place to begin with. There's a lot we can do without, especially if we are not living as part of a commercial economy. We won't need paper. Kitchen space can be v. simple - a hob and a microwave oven.

Void · 2013-01-19 00:44:19

One of the things I have been pondering is the use of ground ice as habitat. The point is that Mars may have a lot of it to offer at high lattitudes. For instance glaciers in the south part of Hellas?

I guess what I would be searching for is a submerged lava tube system, or a submerged bed of soft sediment stone like sandstone, which I think there could be a chance of.

But to get into it, you would have to have a tunnel system, and a means to habitate your location while you were tunneling.

If I were a Mars inhabitant, and had decided that I would be able to profit from such an effort, I would want materials to make the habitation of ice caves more pleasant.

So, as a customer, I would want patio type bricks, for a floor, perhaps putting an insulation under them. Not specified what insulation. I have considered an analog of tar paper as well. Mineral wool bonded with tar to make walls and roof. This supposes that it would be practicle to pressurize deep buried ice caves, and that you would have a power source.

I am not trying to deviate from initial plans for settling Mars. That would be by delivered materials. However having mastered habitation of "Glaciers", inhabitants would have a place to expand in a large degree. The methods would be useable in high lattitudes, to provide living space and factory space.

I am doing this as an exercise.

So I am a hypethetical construction oriented business person, can I get patio blocks an bricks built from dune materials or the tailiings from drilling in sandstone.

Could a 3D printer of sorts build walls and a ceiling from mineral wool and tar? Granted there could be other finishing materials involved in making the interior more pleasant. Insulation on the outside of the "Tar Paper Shack" as well.

Obviously if I am building an expanding system of tunnels in the ice, I have a water supply.

I hope my presence is not a negitive here.

louis · 2013-01-19 04:31:13

Why don't you think Mars brick construction, as advocated by Zubrin, woudl not be the way forward? Wouldn't that be a lot easier?

Void wrote:

One of the things I have been pondering is the use of ground ice as habitat. The point is that Mars may have a lot of it to offer at high lattitudes. For instance glaciers in the south part of Hellas?
I guess what I would be searching for is a submerged lava tube system, or a submerged bed of soft sediment stone like sandstone, which I think there could be a chance of.
But to get into it, you would have to have a tunnel system, and a means to habitate your location while you were tunneling.
If I were a Mars inhabitant, and had decided that I would be able to profit from such an effort, I would want materials to make the habitation of ice caves more pleasant.
So, as a customer, I would want patio type bricks, for a floor, perhaps putting an insulation under them. Not specified what insulation. I have considered an analog of tar paper as well. Mineral wool bonded with tar to make walls and roof. This supposes that it would be practicle to pressurize deep buried ice caves, and that you would have a power source.
I am not trying to deviate from initial plans for settling Mars. That would be by delivered materials. However having mastered habitation of "Glaciers", inhabitants would have a place to expand in a large degree. The methods would be useable in high lattitudes, to provide living space and factory space.
I am doing this as an exercise.
So I am a hypethetical construction oriented business person, can I get patio blocks an bricks built from dune materials or the tailiings from drilling in sandstone.
Could a 3D printer of sorts build walls and a ceiling from mineral wool and tar? Granted there could be other finishing materials involved in making the interior more pleasant. Insulation on the outside of the "Tar Paper Shack" as well.
Obviously if I am building an expanding system of tunnels in the ice, I have a water supply.
I hope my presence is not a negitive here.

Void · 2013-01-19 12:13:59

Your crititisicms are fair.

But I will play my part and speculate. I presume a high degree of automation including robotics, and this thread starts as 3D printers and economics. I can offer that being flexible, the 3D printer system making bricks can also make other objects, such as counter tops, bowls, electrical insulators and so on. Once you have a production line taking in raw materials, it's output can be a spectrum of objects, and so the cost of bricks would be reduced by being able to make other things while demand was low for bricks.

I am presupposing that a environment would be developed underground which would be hollows under a significan layer of ground ice. I am supposing high lattitudes in both hemispheres, but probabbly not up to the polar ice caps. The dune material is something that Mars has to offer in large quantities. Although in another thread, I have supposed that it might be useful to find lava tubes submerged in ice as habitat, I am much more interested in finding sandstone deposites with overlying ice, the reason being that both ice and sandstone are relatively soft, and might yield a pressurizable network, which is hard to envision on the surface.

Against this, I know that 3D printers are more suited to special runs of a small quantity of a desired object, than to mass production, but the technology is new, and I expect that it may be integrated into a large system of automation, housed underground. Of course if you are carving hollows in sandstone, then you actually have to remove tailings from your hollows, and place them above ground, but the sandstone tailings, and dune materials may be different materials, so what you may make may be different from each. I am wondering if above ground some useful objects could be made from such materials.
perhaps some type of energy collection system.

My interest here is how you utilize what Mars has to offer as large scale "Gifts" in the upper lattitudes. The potential economics of it, and how 3D printers might fit in.

Solutions at other locations such as the equator, and poles would be different.

We almost never beneficiate a habitat, but rely on it to give us gifts, such as a hydroelectric plant on Earth harnessing the flow of water downhill. Mars does not offer that.

louis · 2013-01-19 13:44:48

Digging up and using materials on Mars is not so easy. What really takes labour, plant and time on earth is purifying materials and then treating them by various processes to mix them etc so that they form useful materials in manufacturing etc. On Earth we do that in great big industrial plants. To start doing that on Mars, even at reduced scale, is quite a logistical challenge when we can only take to the surface maybe 50 tonnes of equipment per mission and a lot of that has to be used for life support, habitat and food production.

We can take some of the raw materials with us e.g. plastic balls for use in 3D printers, but that does really save us much mass (if any).

What I think we need to do is maximise use of Mars based materials that are relatively easy to manipulate. I think this might mean iron and basalt to begin with. We can also use plants like bamboo to make a whole range of useful utensils, vessels and other products. We also need to ensure a simple low input lifestyle as far as possible.

Void · 2013-01-19 16:58:32

True,

I was thinking of the recent effort where a primitive object was created using a laser process in a 3D printer. A sort of particle by particle sintering.

Manufacturing a glue to glue particles together might be an option, but perhaps not value effective. As you have said, transporting the raw materials is not a real option.

louis · 2013-01-19 19:31:36

Void wrote:

True,
I was thinking of the recent effort where a primitive object was created using a laser process in a 3D printer. A sort of particle by particle sintering.
Manufacturing a glue to glue particles together might be an option, but perhaps not value effective. As you have said, transporting the raw materials is not a real option.

Well some of the 3D printer objects are quite sophisticated now but the question is - is it easier to take a 3D printer and materials for printing (plus spare parts) - or is it easier to take a what you need in finished form...at least for the first few missions that is. I think it's an open question at the moment. Perhaps if 3D printer can be made smaller and lighter it might be worth take one or two along with us.

Void · 2013-01-19 20:29:05

Well, as manufacturing goes 3D printers are a generalist, on the first few missions, the unexpected might be a factor, so I would want some generalist capabilities supported by innovative solutions (Software) from Earth.

The personal though? Specialized as far as a narrow purpose, most efficient at that. The 3D printer might save them, if events go outside of their specialized efficient abilities.

If you are talking exploration, then the scheme to escape danger might focus on leaving early.

If you are talking about the first construction crew, then maybe you send a drone/warehouse with robotic hard landers into orbit around Mars, with spare parts, 3D printers, and whatever, before sending the crew.

Then you send a split crew, some in orbit, and some early landers.

The early landers, set up the prelimary habitat and life support. As they need it, additional supplies from the drone are dropped down by the orbital crew. Spare parts, a 3D printer.

Supposing that it starts as a experiment, and they do a final evaluation. Is this location going to be worth building on. Are the resources expected actually available and usable? In the case of yes, then you send down more of the materials. Otherwise abort and relocate at a later date.

If the location is confirmed and the construction crew intend to stay permanently, then after the hard landers are all used up, the orbital crew lands also, and the drone and unused parts remain in orbit, to be sold to anyone wanting them to set up a different base.

I am presuming that the drone would have been propelled to Mars not by chemical rockets, but perhaps efficient and slow electrical or solar sail or solar wind methods.

This after all would be a construction project, not the first landing.

Here are some thoughts about bringing plastic raw materials:
-What if the fuel tank of the hard lander were Plastic? Could Kerosene be suitable for a lander fuel?
-What if such a parts lander had a cushion of crushable honeycomb made of plastic?

Then those materials could be scavenged to feed into the 3D printer.

Where it might seem like I am proposing that I am not being real about the amount of materials that could be available in orbit, I would suggest that by the time such an activity like this were actually done, humans would have already been capturing small asteroids/rocks, and moving them the the Earth/Moon area, and in that situation, I do not think that the mass delivery to Mars orbit budget will be nearly as strict as if we were supposing a delivery from the Earths surface to the Mars surface.

Last edited by Void (2013-01-19 21:39:12)

louis · 2013-01-20 06:08:01

I think you'll find that's not quite true. IN fact 3D printers tend to be specialist e.g. for toys, medical products or industrial protoypes. Not to say, that a pretty generalist machine couldn't be produced. It would be expensive but expense is probably the least consideration here.

As already said, I am not opposed to a 3D printer being a part of the first mission. I just think it is probably going to be a fairly limited machine and it won't necessarily produce a mass saving. I think it's more important probably to get a small furnace in place that can use Mars iron (with some imported materials like calcium and carbon) to create high grade steel. Versatile moulds (using design info beamed from Earth) could then be used to make complex parts/tools as necessary. The furnace itself can probably be built in large part with Mars based materials.

I agree there should be robot landings to precede the human missions. I envisage at least 4 landings in the prep period of maybe 8 years. During that time you could drop long lasting supplies, clear the landing zone of hazardous rocks, generate rocket fuel (for a return journey), set up PV panels for instant power on landing...and so on. A first hab unit could be dropped to the surface robotically and inflated there. You then have an immediate alternative living area. At the same time there would be materials to build a larger hab using cut and cover methods.

I favour taking a 1.5tonnes mini digger to the surface as part of Mission 1. This could used to dig the hab trench and also be used for mining. It could be human driven (in a pressurised cab) or driven robotically through tele-radio contact.

Void wrote:

Well, as manufacturing goes 3D printers are a generalist, on the first few missions, the unexpected might be a factor, so I would want some generalist capabilities supported by innovative solutions (Software) from Earth.
The personal though? Specialized as far as a narrow purpose, most efficient at that. The 3D printer might save them, if events go outside of their specialized efficient abilities.
If you are talking exploration, then the scheme to escape danger might focus on leaving early.
If you are talking about the first construction crew, then maybe you send a drone/warehouse with robotic hard landers into orbit around Mars, with spare parts, 3D printers, and whatever, before sending the crew.
Then you send a split crew, some in orbit, and some early landers.
The early landers, set up the prelimary habitat and life support. As they need it, additional supplies from the drone are dropped down by the orbital crew. Spare parts, a 3D printer.
Supposing that it starts as a experiment, and they do a final evaluation. Is this location going to be worth building on. Are the resources expected actually available and usable? In the case of yes, then you send down more of the materials. Otherwise abort and relocate at a later date.
If the location is confirmed and the construction crew intend to stay permanently, then after the hard landers are all used up, the orbital crew lands also, and the drone and unused parts remain in orbit, to be sold to anyone wanting them to set up a different base.
I am presuming that the drone would have been propelled to Mars not by chemical rockets, but perhaps efficient and slow electrical or solar sail or solar wind methods.
This after all would be a construction project, not the first landing.
Here are some thoughts about bringing plastic raw materials:
-What if the fuel tank of the hard lander were Plastic? Could Kerosene be suitable for a lander fuel?
-What if such a parts lander had a cushion of crushable honeycomb made of plastic?
Then those materials could be scavenged to feed into the 3D printer.
Where it might seem like I am proposing that I am not being real about the amount of materials that could be available in orbit, I would suggest that by the time such an activity like this were actually done, humans would have already been capturing small asteroids/rocks, and moving them the the Earth/Moon area, and in that situation, I do not think that the mass delivery to Mars orbit budget will be nearly as strict as if we were supposing a delivery from the Earths surface to the Mars surface.

Void · 2013-01-20 14:02:03

Actually, the field appears to be expanding massively, and is indeed generalizing:
The video in particular is worth watching I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pentacarbonyl

Nickel plated plastic mirrors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pentacarbonyl

Extract fairly high purity iron to powder:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonyl_iron

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_metallurgy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_manufacturing

An alternate build process with a vacuum chamber:

http://3dprinting.com/materials/metal/3 … ing-metal/

Direct Laser Sintering, the fire fighting section should be interesting for space suit accessories
customized to a morfic type, such as small/big, Man/woman, adult/child:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lJ8vId4HF8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_melting

Electronics:
Print power supply electronics?

Electrical:
Wire?

Medical:
Broke your leg? Special brace?
Amputation? Prostectics?
Dental? Make a filling to be glued in place? Make a tooth brush?
Martians will have cavities.
Dental floss?

This is a child technology, encouragement is the only moral treatment for it.

The direct laser sintering does not mention Iron or Steel, but I would think that it exists or can exist.

As far as Mass production, I guess if you could mass produce solar devices, that would be great.

I am going to stick to the notion that at first you would want iron nickle meteor raw materials, because:
-A robot could gather it magnetically for you (A rover type device), while you were working on other things.
-Your first settlement would not have to be located specific to a deposite of iron ore.

Further it is Iron and Nickel. In the links above, it seems suggested that you can get the metal Nickel out of the mix before you extract the iron. Nickel is good for plating metals and plastics.

The examples shown in the video, suggest to me that massive possibilities are already available, and go far beyond the last industrial revolution, so it would not be prudent to ignor this new born industrial revolution.

I guess I will add something that is my own thinking.
Mineral Wool, Tar, Nickle plating?

I see the opportunity to make mineral wool, and to glue it with tar, and maybe it would be possible to plate it with Nickle.

I am thinking of solar concentrators. Could this be constructed in part using 3D printer process? Maybe. I would think the mineral fibers would either be cut into short lengths and added to the structure like felt, or would be woven like beta cloth.
I presume that it will be necessary to manufacture hydrocarbon fuels, so the manufacture of tar is not out of the question.

As for suitability to purpose, Mars is colder in general than Arizona for instance, so it might be practicle to expect that deformation from melting of tar will be minimal. We generally think of Tar paper as relatively thin, but I believe that fiber asphalt constructs could be thick, and at least in the high lattitudes useful. I actually think that it will be rare for it to be too warm on Mars for this method.

As for landers, yes you can preposition supplies, but you can also hold a reserve of emergency supplies in orbit. If they never get used, then you have not had the cost of delivering them to the surface, and if you need them, you can have them.

Well the weekend is winding down, and I will likely not respond for a while, so don't let the lack of response be a concern.

Last edited by Void (2013-01-20 14:06:44)

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#1 2012-12-22 13:40:36

Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#2 2012-12-22 15:19:16

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#3 2012-12-22 19:56:34

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#4 2012-12-23 04:58:57

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#5 2013-01-18 10:11:14

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#6 2013-01-18 18:25:13

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#7 2013-01-19 00:44:19

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#8 2013-01-19 04:31:13

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#9 2013-01-19 12:13:59

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#10 2013-01-19 13:44:48

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#11 2013-01-19 16:58:32

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#12 2013-01-19 19:31:36

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#13 2013-01-19 20:29:05

Re: Considering 3D printing and a Martian political/economic landscape

#14 2013-01-20 06:08:01

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#15 2013-01-20 14:02:03

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