When Ryland first takes stock of the laboratory equipment aboard the Hail Mary, prior to even realizing that he’s on a spaceship, he finds (among other tools including a scanning electron microscope and laser interferometer) a sub-millimeter 3-D printer. 01.210

Rocky becomes fascinated with the 3-D printer when exploring the ship’s science lab, excited to observe the machine in action: “I can see it make small thing, question?” 15.060 Ryland later 3-D prints a model of the Hail Mary which Rocky uses when engineering a solution that relies upon the beetles as engines. 23.058

Although our present-day human exploration of space takes place much closer to home than Tau Ceti, astronauts still find it helpful to use a 3-D printer during space missions.

The In-Space Manufacturing (ISM) program, managed by Marshall Space Flight Center, incorporates 3-D printing technology into its overall goal of empowering space explorers with the ability to fabricate and repair components on-demand, reducing the need to bring an extensive supply of pre-made replacement parts into space (ultimately decreasing the mass and therefore cost of space launches).

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have already taken advantage of in-orbit 3-D printing to create such items as a wrench, an antenna part, and a component related to the station’s oxygen generation system. They have also explored the possibility of recycling waste plastic into useful 3-D printer filament, further reducing the amount of material that must launch alongside other vital equipment. In 2024, the European Space Agency supported an in-orbit demonstration of metal 3-D printing, again expanding the possibilities for in-space manufacturing.