3D Printing by Melissa Koch

Author:Melissa Koch [Koch, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 3D Printers, 3D Printing, 3D Printing: The Revolution in Personalized Manufacturing, Copyright, Engineering, Environmental Conservation & Protection, Experiments, Health and Safety, History of 3D Printing, Industry, International Space Station, Invention, Invention and Technology, Inventions, Inventors, Inventors and Scientists, Manufacturing, Melissa Koch, NASA, Nature, Nonfiction, Projects, Science, Science and Technology, Science, Nature & How It Works, Science, Nature, and How It Works, Stem, Technological Development, Technological History, Technology, Technology Innovator, Tools and Technology, Trademark, Twenty-First Century Books, Young Adult Nonfiction, Young Adults
ISBN: 9781512467765
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
Published: 2017-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

In 2014 Afsarifard got her bachelor’s degree in economics, with a minor in technology and information management. That summer she started working as a summer intern for Made In Space. She remembers, “I was sucked into the [Made In Space] start-up [new company just getting started as a business]! Everything happened quickly. There were about twenty employees. We brainstormed a lot as a group. It was so collaborative, everyone had input. I was one of the few people on the team with a background in 3D printing. Most of the other employees were aerospace engineers. I learned a lot from them by asking questions about how things—objects, materials, technologies—behave in space.” Made In Space hired her full-time as a business development associate. She and her colleagues were challenged to figure out how to sell their 3D printing services to aerospace and research labs around the world. These organizations want to know how their designs will print and work in space. Printing in space, at zero gravity, is tricky. Afsarifard had to figure this out. And she had to estimate how much time an astronaut in space would need to print prototypes, including tools and replacement parts.

She says that she and her team encountered many roadblocks as they developed an approach to printing tools and parts in space. For example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had to first approve the safety of each prototype design. This takes time. Yet 3D printing and start-up culture are about speed. The space industry is about being careful and precise. Often products in the space industry are delayed for months or even a year or more. Afsarifard and her team kept moving forward, making sure that NASA had what it needed so that the 3D printing-in-space projects could be successful.

One big project was to develop the Zero-G Printer. Since outer space has no gravity to hold things in place, astronauts at the ISS need a printer that can function outside of the pull of gravity. But a study found that the materials for 3D printing are toxic. The Made In Space team asked themselves, “Do we want these materials in an enclosed space station system where astronauts are breathing in these toxins? Of course not.” So what did they do? They made a filtration system that filters out toxins from the air. The system actually makes the air quality on the ISS better.

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