Machina Labs reposted this
repurposing and recycling is crucial in #space (e.g., to build #habitats and #infrastructure) ... Machina Labs' #Roboforming helps on that front from three perspective: 1) manufacture structures on earth that are designed with repurposing in mind (apart from usual use-cases, our toroidal tank pictured here can also be used for making the first of its kind, in-space waterslide 😄) 2) repurpose an "earthly" article/part in space (for example, add texture to a metal panel from a spent rocket to make a ramp to a habitat) 3) 1+2
Gregory Thompson
1mo
An Astronought.
Blake Rosengren
1mo
Shawn Murray! Getting the dream team back together!
Gravitics Advisory Board
1moTruly love this. I suggest we need to discuss an end-of-life materials registry as an industry. Finding enthusiastic staff would be an easy hit. The automobile industry does this already btw. At EOL a materials list containing grade, safe separation and recycling procedure is made public. The information encourages planned repurposing. If we start to plan this stuff as an industry today then we stand a good chance of being able to successfully and profitably commence using the data in a decade or two - when we might also have the tech. Such a project would likely need regulatory muscle to back it up. No doubt it is the right thing to do - and likely profitable too. Can't resist a story: Imagine grinding up space junk and getting it wrong... remember back in 1984 when 600 tons of recycled radioactive steel from a Juarez scrap yard ended up in metal products spread across 28 states? Cobalt-60 pellets spilled from a dismantled cancer treatment machine got into everything. A Tragedy only discovered when a random passing truck load of lawn chairs triggered a nuclear alarm at Los Alamos I think. A long and scary list of rebar and consumer goods were involved. 25 rads if you sat on a piece of it.