NASA lets astro-addicts print their own piece of space

It’s highly unlikely you’ll ever get to own that piece of moon rock — and from what we recall, also highly illegal, depending on where you live. But hey, at least you can print parts of the moon, with NASA releasing 3D models for people to print from.

If you’re lucky enough to own a 3D printer — or you’re trying to come up with another reason to buy one, aside for the whole 3D printing of parts around the house, phone cases, and making a musical instrument that sounds like digital clowns screaming at the top of their lungs — you now have a few more options to print, as everyone’s favourite (and only) National Aeronautics and Space Administration releases digital downloads to make three-dimensional examples of things the organisation has either found or created.

Most of the things you can find in the NASA 3D printable archive are satellites, with Kepler, Cassini, Rosetta, and Voyager also present, with Mars Odyssey also present, but some of the things these satellites have snapped pictures of are also here in the archive, including parts of our moon, Mars, and even an asteroid or two.

We can’t tell you how long this will take to create — that’s totally dependent on your printer — but the models are at most 10 centimetres long, basically providing you with a miniature version of the space model that you can have for yourself.

You will need a 3D printer to make these happen, with STL files provided by NASA, though, so make sure you have one before you download, because that old laser or inkjet photo printer just won’t do, because these need physical materials to melt into place.

Source: NASA 3D Printing models