FUTURESCAPEs
LOOKING AROUND IN 2035 : A 3D PRINTED WORLD
Planet Earth
The first patent that deals with a process much like 3D printing was filed by Johannes F Gottwald in 1971. He patented the Liquid Metal Recorder, ( U.S. patent 3596285A ), a continuous inkjet metal material device to form a removable metal fabrication on a reusable surface for immediate use or salvaged for printing again by remelting.
3D printing or Additive Manufacture has come a long way since then, with ever-expanding uses far beyond our imagination, and extending to scales beyond the purely desktop scale we are used to seeing.
Additive manufacture in the late 2020s played some role in almost every industry, from high performance medical applications to the conservation and architecture fields. Additive manufacturing technology and processes were deployed from the smallest nano-scales to massive terraforming projects. As the investment grew, so did the use cases.
Two separate events in the US captured the imagination of the globe, pushing the limits of additive manufacture into bold new territory.
The Prosthesis Endurance challenge in Los Angeles 2035 featured a biohacking marathon supported by the biggest 3D printing factories creating a completely new format of man-machine hybrid runners. Global records were broken across almost all track and field events, with endurance races going on for over 1800 kilometres, more than 3 times the previous record held by Dean Karnazes. Dean had held the record since 2005, running 560 km nonstop. It took him 80 hours and 44 minutes. The new prostheses allowed runners to complete the same run in 1/3rd the time.
The second event at almost the same time in San Francisco involved custom performative prostheses developed for Firemen and first responders, to endow them emergency super-human powers. Candidates who had lost limbs in service volunteered for custom fitted additive limbs that made them invaluable additions to the force.
With prostheses like welding arms and superhuman lifting arms that could lift loads upto a ton, the new additions remained to be tested. The floods of 2035 provided the ideal testing ground, with well documented search and rescue operations saving multiple lives, and ushering in a whole new generation of 3D printed add-ons.
3D Printed prosthetic Endurance races : Los Angeles 2035
As use cases grew on the planet, more ambitious start-ups started emerging. The low orbit manufacturing facility startup from Chennai Vedika Astrolabs began with a single production unit specialising in making super high quality fibreoptics.
The microgravity environment in low earth orbit allowed the production of high-quality ZBLAN (a type of fluoride glass) optical fibers, which vastly outperformed traditional silica-based fibers in terms of signal loss and bandwidth.
Microgravity allowed for the 3D bioprinting of tissues and potentially organs without the issue of gravitational collapse, enabling more complex and accurate tissue structures to be created.
Metals and special alloys 3D printed in space were found to have more uniform compositions and fewer defects.
Off-planet 3D printing Factory Hub : Low Earth Orbit 2035
At Nano scales, innovation in 3D printing was driven by huge advances in printing nano batteries for EVs. Several innovations focused on advancements in electrical technologies while others converged on nano-printing methods that utilised photochemical reactions including working with proteins ,glycans and DNA.
AI driven tech paired with 3D Nano printers to print batteries in a manner that allowed electrons to pass through the entire cell at once, versus having to pass through from one side of the cell to the other. This created an almost 500X jump in the efciency of charging EVs, powering the next generation of Nano Printing.
Nano assembly of Protein molecules : South Korea 2035
The Military was the biggest closet spender of 3D printing technology, pushing the size and scale of prints beyond imagination. The first generation of fully working zero-supply chain tanks rolled off the factory floor complete in all respects, with metal and ABS parts being printed simultaneously.
Now that the technology has been established and made domestically available, a hacker based in Texas managed to get his hands on the print fles and print his own version of the tank. He added aerodynamic adaptations to the base model, raising security dilemmas. He is currently using this tank to seed his felds, but future uses remain to be seen.
Military tank 3D printing facility : Ukraine 2035
Hobby tank printed over base model : Texas 2035
The End is Here.