soon you may be able to create a kidney witha copy machine. how would you like to download a coffee table?or at least a digital model of a coffee table that you could customize any way you likeso it fit perfectly in your living room and then you just print it out. i'm not talkingabout a picture of a coffee table. i'm talking about an actual, physical three-dimensionalobject that lives in your living room. well it's all possible. it's the world of 3d printingand it's going to change everything. it'll redefine the way we think about innovation,design, manufacturing, distribution. everything about buying and selling tangible goods fromhere to mars. simply put, 3d printing is the process ofmaking three-dimensional, solid objects out
of 1's and 0's from a digital file. 3d printersbridge the gap between the digital and physical worlds. it uses very thin layers of plastic,measuring just a few microns, as thin as a sheet of copy paper, to build an object fromthe bottom up. this is additive manufacturing. it creates a new item by adding only whatis needed. unlike other forms of manufacturing where the excess is carved, cut or meltedaway, leaving a ton of waste. and 3d printing isn't limited to plastics. already, you canprint stuff to glass, metal, food, organs - i'm not talking about the musical instrument,i'm talking about human tissue. i kid you not! a couple of years ago there was a guywho demonstrated he could print human kidneys using living cells as ink. we're talking aboutthe ability to create transplant organs with
a 3d printer. and this isn't the future we'retalking about - we're talking about right now! i mean we've come a long way from the1980s when a bunch of do-it-yourself nuts decided to kickstart 3d printing. today, youand i, you know, people who have real jobs, we can actually go out and buy one of thesethings for like, a thousand bucks. forbes estimates that it'll be a five billion dollarindustry by the year 2020. and as these printers become more popular, the price comes down,which means consumers like me and you can afford to buy one ourselves. or have a friendprint one out for us. once we get to the point where we can printcircuitry directly, you print one printer that prints another printer, and it's gameover. we're talking limitless customization.
you could even scan your entire body and printout your own action figure. or in my case, an inaction figure. nasa's using 3d printersto make repairs on space equipment. they use a process called selective laser melting,or slm, that they use to create a nickel alloy to repair everything like the j2 rocket engine.i mean, this is the promise of 3d printing! we can make our lives as customized as wewant, print any object you can imagine, and have it in your hand in just a matter of hours.and in the immediate future, it could mean
3d printed figure of yourself,that astronauts are able to print our repairparts for space craft or space stations, which are pretty important when you're months awayfrom a rescue mission. i mean, imagine what it would've been like if apollo 13 had a 3dprinter on board. but then we wouldn't have
had tom hanks in space...
