Defectors from SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing a remarkable technology called 'Stargate' to help colonize other planets

There is no wiggle room once you land on Mars. You either have what you need to survive, or you die.

That risk is dramatically portrayed in the sci-fi book and movie "The Martian," in which a stranded astronaut survives on leftover potatoes, freeze-dried feces, and a lot of gumption.

But the harsh realities of Mars loom in a fast-approaching future.

Elon Musk's aerospace company, SpaceX, aims to ship people to the red planet and colonize that world on an eyebrow-raising timeline — perhaps as soon as 2024. Meanwhile, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is pressing to colonize space with his spaceflight company, Blue Origin. Even NASA is working hard (though with some stumbles) to build a towering interplanetary rocket called Space Launch System.

That's where the upstart rocket company Relativity Space, which has backing from Mark Cuban, sees a vital opening for business.

"We feel like it's inevitable that if humanity is going out to colonize other planets, 3D-printing is really the only way to manufacture things like tools and replacement parts," Tim Ellis, a co-founder of Relativity Space, told Business Insider. Ellis is a rocket-propulsion engineer who formerly worked at Blue Origin.

"So that's what we're working on: How to 3D-print an entire rocket," he said.

Space colonization is a distant business venture for Relativity Space, though, since Mars-bound spaceships won't get off the ground until the 2020s at the very soonest.

Here's a look at what the company is doing right now and how it plans to achieve its long-term vision.

SEE ALSO: This speculative SpaceX timeline reveals roughly when, where, and how Elon Musk plans to colonize Mars

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Ellis helped bring 3D-printing to Blue Origin to quickly and cheaply build custom parts for the company. "That inspired me to see 3D-printing is the future of rockets," he said. "We saw the time savings in this totally new process to build rockets."

The kind of 3D-printing Ellis is referring to is called laser sintering. The system uses laser beams to bond powdered metal, layer by layer, into precise and complex structures that have minimal parts.

Ellis said that, so far, spaceflight companies are only dipping their toes into the technology. "They're only printing parts here and there and cannibalizing launch systems from the bottom-up," he said. "The problem with that approach is that there are close to 100,000 parts in a rocket."

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Contributer : Tech Insider https://ift.tt/2S7H2rI

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