Space,

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.