Leaders at Davos are bracing for huge technology shocks.
Implantable mobile phones. 3D-printed organs for transplant. Clothes and reading-glasses connected to the Internet.
A new 3-D microprinting process allows scientists to easily manufacture tiny, complex metal components. The used technology was designed by ETH researchers years ago for biological research and has now been further developed for a completely different application.
In less than 4 yrs. 5 million jobs will be lost is the prediction.
A new report predicts a loss of 5 million jobs in the next five years because of technological advances, but don’t blame it all on the robots.
The other culprits: artificial intelligence, 3-D printers and advances in genetics, biotech and more.
Continue reading “Report from Davos: 5 million jobs to be lost by 2020 because of tech advances” »
European Space Agency building a space colony by 2030.
The European Space Agency unveiled plans on Friday to build a “lunar village” by 2030 as a stepping stone to Mars.
ESA chief Jan Woerner said the lunar “village” would be a series of structures made by robots and 3D printers that use moon dust as building material.
Continue reading “Jan Woerner: ESA chief wants to establish a Moon Village” »
Moon “village”, a successor to International Space Station, would be series of structures made by robots and 3D printers that use moon dust as building material.
Anyone offended by the prospect of drinking fine whiskey inside sealed space packs with straws after Suntory sent its finest variety to the ISS for testing? Don’t worry: Ballantine’s got your back. The liquor company has commissioned Open Space Agency’s James Parr — who also created a Lumia-powered 3D-printed telescope in the past — to design a high-tech whiskey glass especially for zero-G environments. He tested a number of designs before settling on a rounded glass with a spiral convex stainless steel base plated in rose gold that can create the surface tension necessary to hold the liquor down. The liquid then passes through channels on the sides of the glass all the way up to the golden mouthpiece.
The “glass” part itself is actually 3D-printed medical-grade PLA plastic, the same kind used for heart valves. Since everything tends to float in microgravity, the base hides a 22-pound magnet that can be used to stick the glass on magnetic surfaces. Plus, it has a one way valve where a customized whiskey bottle nozzle can be inserted to pour out a shot. Parr and Ballantine published more details about the design process on Medium, if you’d like to read more about how the “space glass” was created. Sure, it could be nothing but a marketing stunt, but it’s amazing how much thought went into designing a whiskey glass. It’s unfortunate that most of us might never get to use it in its intended environment; good thing the final product at least looks fancy enough to display.
Continue reading “Ballantine designs ‘space glass’ for drinking whiskey in microgravity” »
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vBsV2PAaHRo
As part of of the Google Lunar X Prize competition, Audi and Part Time Scientists have teamed up to 3D print a rover capable of landing on the moon’s surface, and traversing at least 500 meters thanks to metal 3D printing technology.
NASA recently announced that they test fired a research rocket engine. Nothing special about that—other than the fact said engine was 75 percent 3D printed parts.
As industrial 3D printing has moved from prototyping to actually manufacturing finished products, the aerospace industry has become an avid early adopter. Although in many industries mass production techniques still make economic sense—for the ultra-precise, almost bespoke parts in rockets? 3D printing is a great fit.
Continue reading “Why 3D Printing Will Be a Key Technology in the Next Space Race” »
So-called ” asteroid mining” company Planetary Resources is built on the belief that asteroids and other objects in space are loaded with resources that we can take advantage of, both here on Earth and as we begin to explore space in earnest. The essentially infinite supply of rocks floating through space, filled with valuable minerals that we’ll eventually run out of on our home planet, sounds like a great resource to take advantage of. But the idea of mining, processing and building with alien metals also sounds like a massive and daunting undertaking.
Up until now, everything we’ve ever used in space has been brought there from Earth. Planetary Resources Inc. has long-term ambitions to mine the infinite resources space provides. In the mean-time, they’ve proven its possible by 3D printing material derived from an asteroid.
