Making a Rocket could be as easy as loading up a printing program, on a computer, and pressing Start. The 3D printer does the rest.

These Giant Printers Are Meant to Make Rockets

Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone are both in their mid-20s, and it shows. The two aerospace engineers are energetic, optimistic, and so ambitious they can't help sounding a little bonkers. In a small factory a couple of miles from Los Angeles International Airport, Ellis and Noone have spent the past two years working to build a rocket using only 3D printers.

From article, (In a small factory a couple of miles from Los Angeles International Airport, Ellis and Noone have spent the past two years working to build a rocket using only 3D printers. Their startup, Relativity Space Inc., is betting that removing humans from the manufacturing equation will make rockets way cheaper and faster to produce. The going rate for a rocket launch is about $100 million; Relativity says that in four years its price will be $10 million. “This is the right direction,” says Ellis, the chief executive officer, during the first-ever press tour of the company’s headquarters. “The 3D printing and automation of rockets is inevitable.”

The printers, among the largest ever, consist of 18-foot-tall robotic arms equipped with lasers that can melt a steady stream of aluminum wire into liquid metal for shaping. Ellis and Noone say a handful of the arms can work together to create the rocket’s entire body as a single piece, guided by custom software that monitors their speed and the metal’s integrity. They haven’t performed that task yet, but the printers have already made a 7-foot-wide, 14-foot-tall fuel tank in a few days and an engine in a week and a half. Relativity says a whole rocket can be built within a month if the company makes good on the promise of its technology. By comparison, the most efficient rocket-making processes today require hundreds of people working for many months.

The boldest future application of Relativity’s machines could take place on Mars. Ellis says the company plans to refine its printers so they’re durable and adaptable enough to help create the buildings that make up a space colony. “If you think that type of future is inevitable, then we will need lightweight, intelligent, and automated manufacturing to build stuff on another planet,” he says. “Our long-term mission is to print the first rocket on Mars.” Top that, Elon.)

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