3D Printing. The future of building rockets for space missions?

[Norbert L]

The video explains the process. Is Elon and NASA and the rest of the space agencies around the world working with a soon to be outdated method of constructing rockets?

 

[1rreducibly Complex]

If the technology were viable. We would see 3d printed lawnmower and motorcycle engines. Then 3d printed car and truck engines. 3d printed airplane and jet engines.

And finally 3d printed rocket engines.

Due to the high heat and engineering tolerances, rocket engines would have the biggest obstacles for 3d printing to solve. It would be tackled last. Not first. The low hanging fruit would be the first legitimate application.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If the technology were viable. We would see 3d printed lawnmower and motorcycle engines. Then 3d printed car and truck engines. 3d printed airplane and jet engines.

And finally 3d printed rocket engines.

Due to the high heat and engineering tolerances, rocket engines would have the biggest obstacles for 3d printing to solve. It would be tackled last. Not first. The low hanging fruit would be the first legitimate application.

3d printing has one major flaw, just as robot programming has, "It can only do what it thinks it can do." That is to say, it does not know that 3d printing, which is necessarily layering, has inherent problems. We cannot be the ones lazy in our thinking, and assume that the programming will work out these flaws, as though our responsibility ends with the conceptualization and begins again with the use of the completed product.