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NASA funds research into self-building spaceships
Technology News Blog

Considering the difficulties of getting even relatively small
spacecraft like the SpaceX Dragon into orbit, the idea of launching
larger interplanetary craft from Earth's surface seems especially
daunting. To address this, NASA thinks that future spacefaring
vehicles could actually construct themselves after they've launched
using onboard 3D printers, eventually transforming into ships much
larger and more complex than anything that could ever be built on the
planet.

The space agency recently awarded $100,000 to a project called
SpiderFab that aims to study this concept and ultimately produce
designs for such a craft. In theory, a small vehicle could launch in a
rocket carrying the raw materials needed by an onboard 3D printer.
Unlike fully-assembled craft, it wouldn't need to be designed to fold
up or built to withstand the extreme forces involved in liftoff and
ascent into space.

NASA thinks the concept could also be expanded to create a spaceship
that would find its own raw materials once in space, such as metal
from asteroids or even spare parts from defunct satellites. In
addition to building vehicles, the technology could be used to
construct massive radio telescopes and other hardware of a scale and
complexity that could never be launched from Earth.

Just imagine a space station that could "print" itself, without the
need for astronauts or multiple, expensive trips to bring loads of
components into orbit. Or maybe just a giant space baby like the one
seen in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

This article was written by Randy Nelson and originally appeared on
Tecca