The Genius of 3D Printed Rockets

Summary

El script presenta la impresora 3D de metal más grande del mundo, creada por Relativity Space, una startup con el objetivo de imprimir un cohete completo, incluidos tanques de combustible y motores, en solo 60 días. La tecnología de impresión 3D revoluciona la industria espacial al permitir la fabricación de componentes complejos y ligeros, reduciendo el número de piezas y los costos. Además, se explora cómo la impresión 3D puede transformar el diseño de los cohetes, permitiendo estructuras óptimas y de fácil fabricación. La visión a largo plazo de Relativity Space es construir una base industrial en Marte, utilizando la tecnología de impresión 3D como núcleo de su 'fábrica del futuro'.

Takeaways

• 🚀 La impresora 3D de metal más grande del mundo fue construida por Relativity Space, una startup que busca imprimir un cohete entero en solo 60 días.
• 👀 El proceso de impresión 3D de un cohete incluye tanques de combustible y motores de propulsión, y es posible visitar y ver el interior de un cohete impreso que va al espacio.
• ⚠️ Existe un gran riesgo de radiación UV en los soldaduras, por lo que es necesario tomar precauciones para evitar quemarse.
• 🔧 La impresora 3D utiliza un proceso de fundido de alambre con plasma y control de onda eléctrica para depositar las capas de metal.
• 🌡️ La temperatura del proceso es ligeramente superior a la temperatura de fusión del aluminio, alrededor de unas pocas centenas de grados por encima de los 660 grados Celsius.
• 🧵 El material bruto utilizado para imprimir el cohete es un alambre de aleación de aluminio, el cual se imprime a una velocidad de aproximadamente 10 pulgadas por segundo.
• 🔄 Relativity Space ha logrado reducir significativamente el tiempo de desarrollo de un cohete en comparación con métodos tradicionales, planeando lanzar su primer cohete en apenas cinco años y medio.
• 🛰️ Los motores de los cohetes impresos en 3D tienen diseños radicalmente diferentes a los de los motores tradicionales, lo que permite una mayor eficiencia y rapidez en el proceso de construcción.
• 🔩 La reducción del número de piezas en los componentes de los cohetes, gracias a la impresión 3D, lleva a un menor costo y tiempo de producción.
• 🔄 La capacidad de iteración rápida de las piezas impresas en 3D permite a los ingenieros modificar y mejorar el diseño de los componentes de los cohetes de manera mucho más rápida que con técnicas tradicionales.
• 🌌 La visión a largo plazo de Relativity Space incluye no solo la reducción de costos de los viajes espaciales, sino también la construcción de una base industrial en Marte utilizando esta tecnología de impresión 3D.

Q & A

¿Qué empresa creó la impresora 3D de metal más grande del mundo?

Relativity Space, una startup que busca imprimir un cohete entero, incluyendo tanques de combustible y motores de cohete, en solo 60 días.

¿Qué es lo más destacado de la impresora 3D de metal creada por Relativity Space?

La capacidad de imprimir un cohete entero, incluyendo componentes críticos como tanques de combustible y motores, en un tiempo récord.

¿Por qué es importante la impresora 3D de metal creada por Relativity Space para la industria espacial?

Porque puede imprimir componentes de cohetes complejos y grandes a una fracción del tiempo y costo que requerirían los métodos tradicionales de fabricación.

¿Cuál es el proceso de impresión de la impresora 3D de metal de Relativity Space?

Utiliza un alambre de aleación de aluminio en una bobina, el cual se funde mediante un proceso de soldadura por arcos eléctricos y descarga de plasma, controlando la deposición de material con una alta precisión.

¿Cuál es la velocidad a la que se imprime el alambre de aleación de aluminio en la impresora 3D de Relativity Space?

La impresora puede imprimir a una velocidad de aproximadamente 10 pulgadas por segundo.

¿Cómo maneja Relativity Space el problema de la rugosidad superficial de las piezas impresas?

Desarrollaron software que 'reverse warps' la pieza antes de imprimirla, asegurando que la pieza se mantenga perfectamente recta y dentro de una tolerancia de un cabello humano en su longitud completa.

¿Por qué es beneficioso imprimir un cohete en lugar de fabricarlo con técnicas tradicionales?

La impresión 3D reduce el número de piezas, acelera la iteración y diseño, y permite crear diseños que serían imprácticos o imposibles con métodos convencionales.

¿Cuál es la principal ventaja de utilizar la impresión 3D para la construcción de motores de cohete?

La impresión 3D permite integrar piezas complejas en una sola pieza, reduciendo el tiempo de fabricación y los costos, y mejorando la funcionalidad y la robustez de los componentes.

¿Cómo afecta la impresión 3D en la estructura y la resistencia de los componentes de un cohete?

Los materiales impresos son más fuertes que los construidos tradicionalmente, ya que Relativity Space desarrolla sus propios alelos personalizados para la impresión 3D, aprovechando la rápida solidificación para lograr aleaciones muy fuertes.

¿Qué impacto tendría la tecnología de impresión 3D en el futuro de la construcción de cohetes?

La impresión 3D puede transformar completamente la apariencia y la construcción de los cohetes, permitiendo diseños más eficientes y óptimos que antes eran imposibles de fabricar.

¿Cuál es la visión a largo plazo de Relativity Space para la industria espacial y la exploración de Marte?

La visión a largo plazo de Relativity Space es construir una base industrial en Marte, utilizando su tecnología de impresión 3D y su 'fábrica del futuro' para facilitar la expansión humana más allá de la Tierra.

¿Cómo podría la impresión 3D reducir el costo de los vuelos espaciales y hacerlos más accesibles para personas no millonarias?

La impresión 3D reduce significativamente los costos de fabricación de componentes de cohetes y simplifica el proceso de construcción, lo que podría bajar el costo de los vuelos espaciales y hacerlos más accesibles a largo plazo.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Impresión 3D de cohetes: La revolución de Relativity Space

Este párrafo introduce el impresionante mundo de la impresión 3D de metal a gran escala, específicamente la impresora más grande del mundo creada por Relativity Space. La empresa tiene como objetivo impresionar un cohete completo, incluidos tanques de combustible y motores, en solo 60 días. El video es patrocinado por Omaze, ofreciendo la oportunidad de ganar un viaje al espacio. Se describe la experiencia de estar dentro de una impresora 3D de gran tamaño y cómo funciona, utilizando plasma y soldadura por arco eléctrico para fusionar el aluminio. Además, se menciona que la masa adicional debido a la rugosidad de la impresión en 3D es solo del 5 al 10%, y se destaca la simplicidad del proceso de impresión en comparación con los métodos tradicionales de construcción de cohetes.

05:05

🔧 Innovaciones en la impresión 3D y su impacto en la industria aeroespacial

En este párrafo se explora cómo la impresión 3D está transformando la construcción de cohetes, reduciendo el número de piezas y el tiempo de producción. Se menciona que la industria aeroespacial comenzó a utilizar la impresión 3D en piezas pequeñas y complejas hace más de una década, como los inyectores de combustible. La impresión 3D permite crear piezas como el inyector en una sola pieza en dos semanas, en lugar de miles de piezas y nueve meses de fabricación tradicional. También se discute cómo la impresión 3D puede crear canalizaciones de enfriamiento integradas en las piezas, reemplazando el proceso laborioso de soldadura de miles de tubos en la cámara de combustión y el nozzle de un cohete. La tecnología de impresión 3D con polvo de metal y láseres se describe para la fabricación de piezas más pequeñas.

10:06

🛠 Fortaleza y flexibilidad en la impresión 3D de materiales

Este párrafo aborda las preocupaciones sobre la solidez de los materiales metales impresos en 3D y muestra que, en realidad, estos materiales son más fuertes que los fabricados tradicionalmente. Relativity Space desarrolla sus propias aleaciones personalizadas para la impresión 3D, aprovechando la rápida solidificación del metal para crear aleaciones fuertes. Se destaca la ventaja de la impresión 3D para la iteración rápida, permitiendo la construcción, prueba y rediseño de piezas de manera eficiente. Además, se menciona cómo la impresión 3D está permitiendo diseñar piezas que serían imprácticas o imposibles de fabricar con técnicas tradicionales, como estructuras con forma de alas de dragonfly para el próximo cohete Terran R de la empresa.

15:07

🌌 Visión a largo plazo de Relativity Space y su impacto en el futuro espacial

En el último párrafo se discuten los planes a largo plazo de Relativity Space, que incluyen no solo el lanzamiento de cohetes a órbita terrestre baja con Terran One, sino también la capacidad de enviar cargas a la Luna y Marte con Terran R. El fundador de la empresa expresa su visión de crear una base industrial en Marte, utilizando la tecnología de impresión 3D como base para el desarrollo futuro. Se sugiere que la fábrica actual es solo un prototipo y se debate la eventualidad de que la impresión 3D de cohetes se vuelva común o se reemplace por maquinaria dedicada a medida que disminuye el costo de los viajes espaciales. Finalmente, se menciona el patrocinio de Omaze y la oportunidad de ganar un viaje al espacio con Virgin Galactic, beneficiando a la organización Space for Humanity.

Keywords

💡Impresora 3D de metal

Una impresora 3D de metal es una máquina capaz de imprimir objetos tridimensionales utilizando metales como el aluminio. En el video, se menciona que es la impresora más grande del mundo, construida por Relativity Space para imprimir componentes completos de un cohete, incluyendo tanques de combustible y motores, en solo 60 días.

💡Relativity Space

Relativity Space es una startup que busca revolucionar la industria espacial mediante la impresión 3D. El objetivo de esta empresa es imprimir un cohete completo, lo que representa un cambio disruptivo en la fabricación de cohetes, que tradicionalmente requiere de herramientas y procesos complejos y costosos.

💡Cohete 3D impreso

El cohete 3D impreso es un producto resultante de la tecnología de impresión 3D y es central en el video. Se destaca que este cohete no solo es impreso en su totalidad, sino que también incluye componentes críticos como tanques de combustible y motores, lo cual es una innovación en el ámbito de la fabricación de cohetes.

💡Omaze

Omaze es una plataforma mencionada en el video que ofrece la oportunidad de ganar un viaje al espacio. Esta promoción se vincula con el tema principal del video, ya que Relativity Space está en el negocio de enviar cohetes al espacio y Omaze está ofreciendo una experiencia relacionada con ese ámbito.

💡Suministro de alimentación

El suministro de alimentación es una parte crucial del sistema de propulsión de un cohete. En el video, se describe cómo el combustible y el oxidante criogénicos son bombeados a través de un inyector en la cámara de combustión, lo que es fundamental para la generación de empuje.

💡Propulsión

La propulsión es el sistema que permite a un cohete moverse en el espacio. El video destaca cómo la impresión 3D puede ser usada para imprimir componentes del sistema de propulsión, como los tanques de propellante y los motores, lo que puede reducir costos y tiempos de fabricación.

💡Inyector de combustible

El inyector de combustible es una pieza crítica del motor de un cohete, donde se mezcla el propellante líquido para crear una neblina fina que reacciona rápidamente. El video menciona que esta pieza, que tradicionalmente requeriría de múltiples piezas y mucho tiempo para fabricarse, puede ser impresa en una sola pieza usando impresión 3D.

💡Sistema de enfriamiento

El sistema de enfriamiento es esencial para mantener la integridad de las partes críticas del cohete, como la cámara de combustión y el nozzle, que se exponen a temperaturas extremadamente altas. El video explica cómo la impresión 3D permite integrar canales de enfriamiento directamente en las piezas, lo que simplifica el proceso de fabricación.

💡Material compuesto

Los materiales compuestos son mezclas de dos o más materiales con propiedades únicas. En el contexto del video, se menciona que Relativity Space desarrolla sus propios alelos para la impresión 3D, lo que les permite aprovechar las propiedades físicas del metal fundido y enfriado rápidamente para crear alelos muy fuertes.

💡Iteración rápida

La iteración rápida se refiere a la capacidad de diseñar, probar y volver a diseñar un producto en un corto período de tiempo. El video destaca cómo la impresión 3D permite a Relativity Space iterar rápidamente sobre el diseño de sus motores de cohete, mejorando continuamente el diseño en un período de tiempo mucho menor que el requerido por métodos de fabricación tradicionales.

💡Diseño bioinspirado

El diseño bioinspirado se refiere a la creación de diseños que imitan formas y funciones encontradas en la naturaleza. El video menciona que con la impresión 3D, los ingenieros pueden construir diseños que serían imprácticos o imposibles con técnicas tradicionales, como estructuras con forma de alas de dragonfly, lo que puede mejorar la eficiencia y el rendimiento del cohete.

💡Marte

Marte es el objetivo a largo plazo de Relativity Space, que busca no solo enviar cohetes al espacio, sino también construir una base industrial en el planeta. El video destaca la visión de la empresa de usar la tecnología de impresión 3D para eventualmente establecer una presencia humana en Marte y expandir las posibilidades de la experiencia humana más allá de la Tierra.

Highlights

Relativity Space built the world's largest 3D metal printer to print entire rockets, including fuel tanks and engines, within 60 days.

3D printing a rocket can be faster and more efficient than traditional manufacturing methods.

The 3D printing process involves a wire melt team and a print head moving around with plasma discharge controlling the deposition.

Aluminum alloy wire is used as the raw material for printing rockets, with a printing speed of about 10 inches per second.

Relativity Space aims to revolutionize rocket manufacturing with a Silicon Valley approach to rapid iteration and improvement.

The company's first rocket is planned to launch within five and a half years of its establishment, a significantly faster timeline than traditional methods.

3D printed rockets can have a surface roughness that adds only 5-10% of the mass without aerodynamic problems.

Relativity Space has developed software to simulate and reverse warp the rocket parts before printing to ensure precision.

3D printing enables the creation of complex parts like rocket injectors in a single piece, reducing manufacturing time and cost.

The printed materials are stronger than traditionally built parts due to the rapid melting and cooling process and custom alloys.

Rapid iteration in 3D printing allows for continuous improvement of rocket engine designs within a month.

3D printing allows for the integration of complex structures that would be impractical or impossible with traditional manufacturing.

Relativity Space's rocket, Terran R, is designed to potentially send payloads to the moon and Mars.

The long-term vision of Relativity Space includes establishing an industrial base on Mars using 3D printing technology.

3D printing reduces the number of parts in a rocket by a hundredfold, streamlining the manufacturing process.

Relativity Space's 3D printer, named Stargate, is part of a broader strategy to automate aerospace manufacturing.

The company's approach to 3D printing in aerospace is compared to the shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles.

3D printed rockets could significantly lower the cost of space travel, making it more accessible in the future.

The video is sponsored by Omaze, offering a chance to win a trip to space with Virgin Galactic.

Transcripts

- This is the world's largest 3D metal printer.

It was built by Relativity Space,

a startup that aims to print an entire rocket,

including fuel tanks and rocket engines, in just 60 days.

I'm like looking inside a 3D printed rocket

that is actually gonna go to space.

This giant hunk of metal, it's unbelievable.

This video is sponsored by Omaze.

Offering you the chance to win a trip to space.

More about that at the end of the show.

- There's a lot of UV coming off the welds,

you can film it, but don't look directly at it.

You get sunburned fast, so it's like you're suiting up

to go in a volcano.

All right, we're gonna go in to the 3D printer,

and see how it works.

All right, so, yep, just hold this up.

Don't look at it.

We are in the printer.

- I can see it over there.

- If we walk around here, we can get up close.

(machinery whirring)

(machinery beating)

So that's the wire melt team,

and the print head moving around.

So that's the plasma discharge, and it's hard to tell,

but it's doing things every couple of milliseconds,

it's actually changing the electric wave form,

which is how it's controlling the deposition so well.

- Do you know the temperature of it?

Like, is it just above melt temp?

- It's just above melting for aluminum.

Yeah, probably a few hundred degrees above.

- The melting point of aluminum is 660 degrees Celsius.

So the whole body of the rocket

is effectively melted together one tiny bit at a time.

- All the raw metal

for the whole rocket that's printed is this.

It's a, you know, we kind of joke

it's like Charlotte's web.

Like a spider silk, but this is an aluminum alloy

that's on a wire spool.

We actually print about 10 inches a second.

So this wire is really going super fast,

and then the combination of lasers and plasma arc discharge

are working to melt both of them together at the same time.

- So where does the wire come out?

- So it's right there, and then the electric arc discharge

happens right at the tip of the wire too.

- This is a camera. - Yeah, that's a camera.

- But why would you want to 3D print a rocket?

Is it just because we can?

It's funny to me that

you had this experience with 3D printing where you're like,

oh, 3D printing is clearly the future.

Whereas, I feel like a lot of people's experience

with 3D printers as mine has been,

it's like incredibly frustrating.

I feel like 3D printing is that thing

that seems like it should be great,

and yet whenever I try it,

I don't get a result that I'm happy with.

- Yeah, I know.

I can tell you, we had plenty of experiences

the first couple of years,

where we ended up with a pile of metal and it didn't work.

- But there are actually good reasons to 3D print a rocket.

A rocket has four major systems.

Payload, guidance, structural, and propulsion.

The bulk of the rocket is made up of the propulsion system,

including the propellant tanks and the rocket engines.

Cryogenic fuel and oxidizer are pumped

through an injector into the combustion chamber

where they react, releasing an enormous amount of heat.

This causes the exhaust gases to expand,

exiting the rocket nozzle at high velocity.

The faster this exit velocity

and the higher the mass flow rate,

the more thrust that can be generated.

So rockets are huge, complex engineering projects,

which up to this point have largely been manufactured

using traditional techniques.

That means before you can build the rocket,

you first have to build the tools to build the rocket.

For example, to build NASA's next huge rocket,

the Space Launch System or SLS,

they first needed to construct

the vertical assembly center or VAC.

This is a 170 foot tall tool for welding together

the domes, rings, and barrel sections

of the rocket's fuel tanks.

- They built that like an aerospace thing,

and they've had to spin up all these custom tooling designs

and validate that those work

before actually starts building the rocket.

And they finally got one being assembled on the pad

after 11 years of development.

In contrast, Relativity Space the company,

is just five and a half years old,

and they plan to launch their first rocket this year.

- I see this as a like old engineering style

versus Silicon valley style of build something,

figure out what's wrong with it,

and build another thing that fixes those, right?

The differences, I've always done that with software.

These guys are doing it with aerospace hardware.

- So this is the actual rocket tank structure

of what we're gonna be launching to orbit

at the end of this year.

So this actual thing is launching to space.

- That will go to space?

- This will go to space,

and it's by far the largest 3D printed product really,

of any type ever made that's gonna fly.

I think maybe of any type in the world.

- But it still looks 3D printed.

Like you can still see the layers.

- Yeah, yeah, you can still see the layers.

It only adds an extra 5 to 10% of the mass

with the roughness.

When you actually cross section the material

and look at the machine parts of it,

it looks like normal metal.

Like actually at this end, this is printed as well.

We just machine it afterwards.

So it looks like normal metal in the joint sections.

- Does the surface roughness cause any aerodynamic problems?

- No, none at all.

Yeah, it's actually the exact same aerodynamically.

This whole thing, we simulate the print before printing,

because if you just printed, you know, the 3D file

and said press print, you would end up with a printer

that's warped and like material falling all over the place

that wouldn't actually work.

So we've invented software that reverse warps

the whole part before printing it.

So the robots are actually doing this

really wobbly, weird shape,

but then it's actually perfectly straight

within a human hair at the entire length.

- As it cools - As it cools.

The warpy thing turns into the...

- And then we simulate all of that.

So it's a big computational solver

that simulates it, and there's many, many other problems

we've had to solve to actually get

printing a rocket to work.

But it's all these little pieces

over the last couple of years,

and we've really started to hit some breakthroughs,

which is also why now you see a whole rocket.

Yeah, you can step up here actually

if you want. - Can I?

- Yeah, yeah.

(man laughs)

- Hello.

I'm like looking inside a 3D printed rocket

that is actually gonna go to space.

- Yes.

- This giant hunk of metal.

It's unbelievable.

There's like rings inside.

- Those are printed in stiffeners.

And so those help prevent the rocket

from buckling and crumpling.

So if you had a Coke can, and didn't pop the tab,

if you try to step on it, it's almost impossible

because there's pressure inside

that keeps it from buckling.

But then when you pop the tab,

there's no pressure and you can crunch it super easy.

It's not hard at all.

So rockets are the same.

The 50 PSI of pressure,

which is about the same as a car tire,

keeps it inflated and keeps it from crumpling,

but then the stiffeners also help keep it rigid.

- Yeah, so believe it or not,

a rocket tank is thinner versus its diameter

than a Coke can.

So when you look at a Coke can,

you know how big it is and then how thin it is,

a rocket tank is actually thinner than that.

So yeah, it's pretty light.

It has to be very light.

- Sure.

Aerospace companies started using metal 3D printing

over a decade ago to construct small complex parts.

For example, the injector.

- That is the most important part of any rocket engine,

where you basically gotta take the liquid propellant,

and turn it into a fine mist that mixes really rapidly.

And those have actually been transitioned

to 3D printing all over the industry.

- Traditionally, something like this,

it's a bucket engine injector.

So it mixes liquid oxygen

and liquid methane propellants together,

and this is what actually produces all the fire and flame

that is in a rocket engine.

Traditionally, it would be over a thousand individual pieces

and it would take nine months,

but here we're 3D printing the whole thing in one piece.

It takes two weeks and it costs 10 times less.

- One of the big benefits of 3D printing

is reducing the number of parts.

Have you ever thought about

how inside a rockets combustion chamber, it gets really hot.

Up to 3,500 Kelvin.

That's hot enough to melt virtually any metal.

So how do the combustion chamber and rocket nozzle not melt?

The answer is they're cooled by passing

the cryogenic propellants over them.

- On the Space Shuttle main engines.

I love to talk about them because inside those engines,

it's hot enough to boil iron.

On the outside, you can freeze stuff

to the exterior of this because you're running liquid

hydrogen through these things.

But to make those,

you basically had to take thousands of very small pipes,

and then you would form them

into the shape of the combustion chamber and the nozzle,

and then you would braze weld them together.

And this was a ridiculously labor-intensive task.

You would have 1,080 individual pipes running up the side,

all having to be weld together

to make the combustion chamber and the nozzle

on the Space Shuttle engines.

So you can actually 3D print these things.

- This is a rocket nozzle being 3D printed,

and you can see the channels for the cryogenic propellants

being printed right into the single part

instead of having to add a thousand pipes on the outside.

Smaller parts like these are typically 3D printed

using metal powder and lasers.

- So you can see the cooling channels

are all being built as the one piece.

So this is a nozzle.

It really just lays down a layer of powder

that's about a 20th the thickness of a human hair.

So it's really, really fine layers

just over and over and over and over relentlessly

for probably about a week or so,

and then out comes the rocket nozzle

all printed as one piece.

It's way cheaper than traditional.

And this has four lasers going at once.

- That's amazing.

- I get asked a lot, well, aren't 3D printed metals

not very strong?

Or how can it actually work?

But the printed materials are stronger

than they would be built traditionally, actually.

It's counterintuitive.

- It is.

- Because we develop our own custom alloys in house.

So we have a whole material science team

just developing our own alloys for 3D printing,

and the fact that it melts and then cools and solidifies

very, very quickly, you can take advantage

of that physics principle to get really strong alloys.

- Another major benefit of 3D printing

is that it allows for rapid iteration.

You can build a part quickly, test it,

and then redesign rapidly and print again.

- So this is a version of the engine

that's about three years old at this point,

but what's amazing is when you actually look

at the engine design today,

it looks entirely different than this.

So each version we build, we can iterate and make better.

So that's the other, you know,

when we say software driven manufacturing,

that's really what it is.

Since you don't have fixed tooling,

all the part geometries are just controlled

via the CAD model, and then the printers just print

direct from file essentially.

It means you can actually change the design extremely fast.

So building a whole engine only takes us about a month.

So then a month later, you can do a better version,

and a month later, a better version than that.

So this particular one will actually be,

I believe one of the first flight engines

that's actually launching to orbit on our first rocket.

- So this tubing, not 3D printed, right?

- Not today.

- Okay.

- In the future versions, we're actually integrating that

into the printed housings.

And we're gonna have a way that that's all printed too.

- Perhaps the biggest impact

of the 3D printing approach could be to totally transform

what a rocket looks like.

With 3D printing, engineers can build parts

that would be impractical or impossible

with traditional techniques.

Smooth, curvy, bio-inspired designs

are just as easy to print as ordinary structures.

- This is actually part of our next rocket, Terran R.

So it's even larger.

- This is like the base of a tank.

- Yeah. Yeah.

So it's gonna go out.

It's almost done printing.

It's gonna go out about to here.

So it's 16 foot diameter, but it's almost like a shell.

- I was gonna say like, this reminds me of suddenly

we're in The Little Mermaid or something.

- Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's just for stiffness though.

- It's not that you plan to make it bio inspired.

It's like that structure is actually the optimal structure.

- Yeah, yeah.

- We're actually designing many features in the rocket

that could not be manufactured unless it was 3D printed,

which is one of the secret sauces

of why you had to build a whole company around it,

is because our rocket actually looks

entirely different 3D printed than it does traditionally.

Like in my mind, it's been more akin

to like gas internal combustion engine to electric.

You know, really, people are trying to put batteries

and electric motors into existing products for decades.

Like everyone knew electric vehicles were the future,

but Nissan and Ford had really not compelling products

for a long time.

It wasn't until a company came along called Tesla

that decided, well, actually the shift to electrification

means the batteries, the electric motors, the factory,

the design of the product,

how we're actually gonna scale the company,

the supply chain, all of it's different

because of electrification.

I mean, that's in some ways,

the dirty secret of electric cars

and why they're able to be automated in production

because the part count is so much lower.

So for a fully 3D printed rocket,

we have a hundred times fewer parts,

which is what we're guiding to.

There's no fixed tooling in our factory at all.

Unlike the rest of aerospace

that's still really, 60 years later,

even since Apollo building products

one at a time by hand with hundreds of thousands

to millions of individual parts.

And no one's really changed that paradigm

of how an aerospace factory actually fundamentally works.

- Yeah, this is the new fully 3D printed rocket.

So yeah, we'll have dragon fly wing type structures

and we're building it so.

But that's the first one,

and then that's that one for scale.

So yeah, it is definitely bigger.

Yeah, so our rocket is named Terran One and Terran R,

and then our 3D printer's Stargate.

So all the things here at Relativity

are named after StarCraft.

So yeah, of course, the Stargate printer

was with the Protoss used to warp in spaceships.

And so, that's what's warping in spaceships at Relativity.

We have a system in our avionics called the Pylon

that we have to build a lot of.

So we always joke, we have to construct additional Pylons.

Most people don't know how rockets

are built traditionally at all anyway.

And I think a lot of people assume it's rockets,

so shouldn't it be already very advanced

and robots everywhere and you know,

Elon's got Space X and Tesla,

so doesn't Space X just look like Tesla

with all these robots and automation?

But that's really not true.

I mean, aerospace hasn't adopted automation at all.

- One of the issues, right, is that you're not making

a lot of rockets?

- Right?

- So there's no incentive to like figure out

how to tool up a factory to like pump out rockets

like a hundred a day or something.

- Exactly.

- Like you would for cars.

- Exactly, you're not making a lot.

Even with commercial aircraft,

you're not making nearly as many

and there's orders of magnitude more parts and complexity.

A commercial aircraft has several million individual parts.

So to have robots assemble several million parts

when an automobile has tens of thousands

is completely different.

It's a much harder problem.

So that's where 3D printing is automation for aerospace

because you're not assembling all those parts with robots

like you would with a car,

you're assembling them in the 3D file

and then the printer just prints them assembled.

- The plan for Relativity Space,

is it low-earth orbit or is it going further than that?

- So for Terran One, it's mostly low earth orbit.

The first rocket.

Terran R can actually send payload to the moon to Mars.

I mean, it's pretty, pretty huge.

I founded the company because I really thought

that there needed to be, you know,

dozens of hundreds of companies making Mars happen.

We're focused on taking this 3D printing tech

and what we call the factory of the future,

and one day shrinking it down to something

we'll actually launch to Mars and build an industrial base.

So that's the long-term vision of the company,

is build the industrial base on Mars.

In many ways, this factory is just a prototype.

It's still far smaller than a traditional factory.

It's far lighter.

And I think it's inevitable

someone has to build this company.

- I don't know that in 10, 20 years

that you will be 3D printing rockets all the time.

Because if you are flying lots of rockets,

it becomes cheaper to have a dedicated machine for it.

I do think that as a company, they are well-placed

because even if Terran fails to capitalize on the market,

even if nobody wants to use it as a launch vehicle,

they are clearly now the world experts

on 3D printing rocket hardware,

'cause they've done everything, right?

They've tried to apply 3D printing to places

where a lot of people dismissed it.

So I think they're sort of secure as a company.

Whether we will see rockets being 3D printed all the time?

That's a good question.

- There've been a lot of talk recently

about billionaires going to space.

- Yeah.

- Will a 3D printed rocket make it possible

and a lot cheaper for me to go to space?

- Yes, I mean, certainly what we're doing

is lowering the cost.

So our rockets are costing about five times

to, you know, I believe we can get to 10

or even a hundred times cheaper

with a fully reusable rocket than what we have today.

So it can definitely climb down the cost curve.

But I also think, you know, going to Mars

and the first people that are going,

it really is about what is the point of being a human being?

Like for me, why go to Mars?

If we were having this conversation

and a million people were living on another planet,

I think it would expand the possibilities

of human experience and what it means to be a person.

Like we'd have YouTube channels on Mars

and people sharing what life on Mars is like versus earth.

And there'd be long distance Amelie, like love stories.

Like I think there's just a lot of richness

in what human culture and society can be about.

Yes, I think there's criticism about,

you know, billionaires going to space

and I don't agree with.

You know, all of the projects

need to actually add up to some vision that is meaningful.

I think that's really important.

But I do think going to Mars is really just about,

you know, we've lived for generations on earth,

so what's it all about like,

why do we want to keep improving and getting better

and furthering society on earth?

So for me, it's pretty existential.

What it means to be a human being.

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