no not in the final frontier,
but space aboard a Royal Navy ship is limited, so how to
gain some? well here is a neat idea, instead of taking drones, rockets,
missiles, shells and warheads, why not take a 3D printer on board ship and print/fabricate them as needed,? for example, in 2011, the University of
Southampton successfully 3D printed a drone, the lightweight SULSA, recently
they then launched that drone from the deck of the HMS Mersey, a
small patrol ship, and it successfully flew the approximately 1500 feet to
shore, while the SULSA wasn't printed onboard the ship itself, it likely could
have been, the ability to print drones on demand from a common reserve means
small ships like the Mersey could do much more than their size suggests, what
if, instead of printing a small flying scout, they wanted to make something a
little bit deadlier, like a missile? defense giant Raytheon claims they’re
almost there, from a press release updated
earlier this month,
'there are folks in industry printing warheads,' said
[Raytheon engineer] Danforth, 'We are printing demos of many of the seeker
components, and we demonstrated a printed rocket motor, We've already printed 80
percent of what would go into a missile,' this flexibility is something the
defense industry and the military are actively
working on, tomorrow’s seamen may set forth not knowing if their next
mission will require the explosive force of missiles or the scouting eyes of a
drone, so small ships like the Mersey could pack a much bigger punch than
expected with just a 3D printer on board.
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