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Imagine that you're stationed at a lunar colony, some decades in the future, when your moon monkey wrench breaks. You have two choices: wait for a replacement tool in the next cargo shipment a month away, or just make one on the spot. The do-it-yourself option recently got a boost, when researchers demonstrated the feasibility of 3-D custom parts printing using raw materials available on the moon.
想象一下，你駐扎在月球殖民地上，幾十年過后，你的活動扳手斷裂了。你有兩個選擇：等待一個月后的貨物托運送來替代工具，或者在月球上動手制作。當研究人員表明了3-D定制配件打印機的可行性（能采用月球上的原材料制作成品），自己動手制作一時風行起來。
The team, which included researchers from NASA and Washington State University, worked with a 3-D printer that melts powdered feedstock with lasers and then layers the melted powder into solid structures. Real lunar regolith is too precious to melt down, so they fed the printer with imitation lunar soil—a close chemical match to the real thing.
研究小組包括來自美航局和華盛頓州立大學的研究人員，他們共同研制出一種3-D 打印機，這種打印機能夠用激光技術溶化粉末狀的原料，然后將溶化的粉末分層次地重組成固體結構。月球表面風化層材料十分珍貴，不宜將其溶化，因此他們模仿月球土壤作為替代——一種接近真實材料的化學物。
In the demo, the researchers produced cylinders of various sizes and reported that the melted regolith was free of cracks. The research appears in the Rapid Prototyping Journal.
在這個演示中，研究人員生產了各種尺寸的汽缸，并稱這種溶化原料完全沒有裂縫。這項研究發表在《快速樣機成型雜志》上。
The printed parts are still a bit rough around the edges, though—they resemble rusty lengths of iron. One of the team members remarked that “It doesn't look fantastic, but you can make something out of it.”
盡管印制元件的邊緣部分仍有些粗糙，但他們還是重組了一節生銹的鐵。其中一名小組成員評論道：“它看起來并不很棒，但至少你能用它來制造東西。”
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