14 DAY TRIAL // 3D printing is in the early days and most people, the few that have heard of it, think of it as something for hobbyists and tinkerers, people building stuff in their garage. For the most part, that's true and it's because printers have either been less than great or much too expensive.
But as price goes down and quality goes up, 3D printing is making its way into the professional space. Still, it's somewhat surprising that a company like Lockheed Martin is using regular MakerBot printers at its Advanced Technology Center.
Sure, MakerBot's desktop 3D printers aren't exactly cheap, but they don't cost a fortune either and are something the dedicated hobbyist is likely to own.
At the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center they are now using three 3D printers for rapid prototyping. The center has always done rapid prototyping, but never in-house. The fact that the consumer models are cheap and user-friendly enough for anyone to use them has been a great boon for productivity there.
With the printers, the engineers were able to create and iterate on countless parts for things like the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's biggest such project to date.