The Genius of 3D Printed Rockets

Thanks to Tim Ellis and everyone at Relativity Space for the tour!

Special thanks to Scott Manley for the interview and advising on aerospace engineering.

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References:

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Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Mike Tung, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Ismail Öncü Usta, Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal

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Written by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang
Animation by Mike Radjabov
Filmed by Derek Muller, Raquel Nuno, Trenton Oliver, and Emily Zhang
Edited by Trenton Oliver
SFX by Shaun Clifford
Additional video supplied by Getty Images & Pond5
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang

[wolfetit]

Look at his smile as he talks about every single little step, mistake, success, finished pieces. You can tell he’s passionate about what he’s doing

[idtbutton]

This guy loves his job. Heaps of positivity and enthusiasm. Most excellent.

[guffels]

Congrats Relativity on your successful Terran 1 launch tonight. So cool to have known so much from this video while I was watching the launch with my coworkers.

[gmnn]

Well.... it worked!!!! I just watched their launch video and it was amazing! To get through Max Q and first stage separation on their first try with a 3d printed rocket is just nuts. I heard about Relativity for the first time here and was really skeptical about it working, but I'm so glad it did.

[smartereveryday]

This video was fantastic. I love how it embraced the philosophical implications. I thought Scott's comments at the end about the future of 3D printing rockets were very interesting. Man, what a great video.

[Moonbo]

The StarCraft referencing was the icing on the cake...

[max]

I love the idea. I've been watching 3D printing grow to serious industry for a while now, but haven't seen something this ambitious. However, there is something that may need to be considered and that is the standardized testing that is typically performed on equipment like this before it is considered flight/space worthy. Currently, Non-destructive testing (NDT) is performed using many techniques, all of which are designed to look for discontinuities on material surfaces or porosities in welds, etc. When things are 3D printed they are not formed or created in the same manner and so they may or may not have the same types of flaws that are found by modern methods searching for these flaws. I mean to say, it is hard to tell what types of imperfections or flaws we might see as the norm within 3D printing. It could be that the material is better in every way. There just needs to be more testing and research in these larger scale things that 3D printers can create.

[starcrashr]

The aerodynamics of 3d printed parts are pretty surprising. Some experiments have shown that the texture forms a cushion of air that actually reduces friction.

[Erik-pumj]

This is quite the incredible company. I'm particularly impressed with their algorithm enabling them to print warped in order to cool straight.

[LitchKB]

As a hobby welder, this was really interesting. The fact they wrote their own software to compensate for warping so well blows me away.

[Aikano]

When I first heard of 3d printing, one of my first thoughts was that in the future you could stick a welder on a robot arm and 3d print metal. Really cool to see a way more sophisticated iteration of that idea being used to 3d print a freaking rocket.

[Vatsyayana]

Literally on the pad right now, Good luck Relativity.

[Syy]

I ADORE that the whole company is full of Starcraft nerds.

[AtomicFrontier]

Whenever I try 3D printing rockets they end up smashed into pieces in the Aussie outback. Guess the secret ingredient was GIANT LASERS! Thanks for the video Derek!

[bluetech]

I could definitely see SpaceX acquiring them and keeping the entire team there just with way more resources at their disposable.

[desktopadonis]

I am a programmer for aerospace inspection. We are all watching this company. If they are successful it will push the whole world to additive manufacturing.

[MissingChunks]

As a qualified welder, the reverse warp simulation is amazing. Given the number of variables in the welding process this is very impressive.

[flatbill]

I love that Scott Manley is delivering all of the technical details!

[MissSpaz]

The thing about (home) 3D printing is that it can be incredibly frustrating if you expect it to be something you can just set up like a paper printer and you get perfect results right out of the gate.

Honestly it can be so incredibly frustrating that I've wanted to throw in the towel. But now I'm printing full body armor for cosplay like Iron Man.
In the end, the concept is roughly the same for how this rocket is 3D printed. Pretty incredible.

[nathanroberson]

@9:05 loved hearing about the brazing. It’s not actual welding. The base metals don’t melt. The best steel bicycle frames are brazed. And it was neat to learn they use brazing to move liquid hydrogen.