NASA recently announced that it plans to take a 3D printer into space in 2014 — and now it wants you to see how it will work.
This video — complete with some awful music — shows off how astronauts will soon be able to print objects as they orbit Earth. Or, as astronaut Timothy Creamer puts it, how it will enable “Star Trek replication right there on the spot”. Ahem.
The idea is to enable the astronauts aboard the ISS to manufacture equipment and spare parts to demand. NASA will be able to provide stacks of digital blueprints or even upload them from the ground, before the space station crew set to work with the printer, which was recently verified for use in zero-G. It’s not clear whether they’ll be making pizza with it not though.