Science & Technology
Interview: Relativity CEO Tim Ellis on 3D printing rocket ships
We sat down with co-founder Tim Ellis to talk about the 3D printing process, and the new space industry. Read more: TechCrunch is a leading technology media property, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news. Subscribe to TechCrunch today:
John theux
May 8, 2020 at 10:08 am
Do you think that those printers can be used for the same purpose?
Ayoub Mouzoun
May 8, 2020 at 10:08 am
This is the kind of projects that’s worth working on.
Ayoub Mouzoun
May 8, 2020 at 10:10 am
Can I know what are all the professional roles involved in this project??
Jason Monteiro
June 30, 2020 at 3:19 pm
LIBERTY for humanity
May 8, 2020 at 10:17 am
please do not allow any chinase in your company or you are going to regretted for LIFE you are going to end like thousands of companies that now are owned by CHINA or destroyed for LIFE, remember 3D Robotics and Jordy Muñoz now broke by CHINA and look at Dji
LIBERTY for humanity
May 8, 2020 at 10:27 am
when CHINA steals your technique and technology or you allow CHINA to invest in your company then kiss good by 100% of your company then kiss the ass of the new GOD IN TOWN WORSE THAN HITLER, XI JINPING .
Kevwe Tony
May 8, 2020 at 10:35 am
This is beyond cool
Hsm99 !
May 8, 2020 at 11:02 am
I like it but what is then about the moral and ethetics, cuz over 1Million people are working in this Area from supplier to rocket building. How are those Jobs are going to be replace ?
Sry for my english
Julian Schmierer
May 24, 2020 at 7:24 pm
They will have to adapt. Just like humanity has done before.
This is not going to replace everyone overnight so there is plenty of time to adapt just like the automobile replaced horse carriages and the light bulb replaced candles this is only going to make our lives better and people need to adapt or be out of work.
That sounds harsh but only because you have worked in a job for 30 years that doesn’t give you the right to slow down technological breakthroughs.
What you are essentially saying is that you are arguing for the waste of human resources only to keep doing anything in an inefficient way to use as much human resources to build things as possible since you want to have people keeping those inefficient jobs.
The results are in. Just look at the Soviet Union and their system of having people work any job just to have them officially having a job.
Let the people adapt to the market (people exchanging goods on a voluntary basis for their own benefit) and you will see that people will find other jobs and the world will be a better place and we eventually will go to Mars.
If you try to keep technology outdated with government interventions just to keep the status quo as it is – well then we are likely going to Gulag – not Mars.
Motor City Delivers
May 8, 2020 at 11:02 am
Enjoying the progress! Now did a 3D printer make parts for their 3D printer?
No Stream Yet
May 8, 2020 at 12:10 pm
Как тебе такое, Илон Маск?
Holodno Bez Tebe
May 8, 2020 at 12:10 pm
Как тебе такое, Илон Маск?
James Black
May 8, 2020 at 12:10 pm
Как тебе такое, Илон Маск?
Ghengis 99.9
May 8, 2020 at 2:41 pm
I just read your ARTICLE about the “Plandemic Documentary” (Dr. Judy Mikovits).
*You people should be ASHAMED of YOURSELVES for PURPOSELY dis-informing your readers*
That woman is an AMERICAN HERO, and the nerve you have to BLATANTLY LIE ABUOT HER is DESPICABLE
I will never use your services for anything again.
gregrampage
May 8, 2020 at 2:50 pm
The level of eye contact in this video is next level.
pan zhou
June 5, 2020 at 11:19 am
they went down to a hotel after the interview
Jose Nesto
February 22, 2021 at 4:49 am
Lol for real 😆 I would’ve broken eye contact long time ago. At least look off to the side or something! 😂
LiveHabesha
April 11, 2021 at 7:03 pm
@pan zhou 😅
Vinicius Catto
May 8, 2020 at 7:33 pm
How cool is it…. not long ago we didn’t even have 3D printers
tyrese smith
May 9, 2020 at 3:53 am
Define “not long ago”
Cosmosity
May 19, 2020 at 4:04 am
yea like 50 years ago
Vinicius Catto
May 19, 2020 at 11:59 am
@tyrese smith before 1986. Chuck Hull … Have you ever heard of?
For me that’s not too long ago (34 years)…
Vinicius Catto
May 19, 2020 at 12:02 pm
@Cosmosity Go do your research… I bet your parents had a $1 million dollars to buy you one back in the 90s… I bet they had a computer and software also, to design the toys you played with.
It was invented buy Chuck Hull 1986 … 34 years if you can’t do the math 👈
Kiliana Hakweenda
May 10, 2020 at 6:53 am
This is going to totally disrupt manufacturing supply chains,I’ll give it 9 to 16 years for this to do that globally.
Kilian
May 10, 2020 at 6:53 am
This is going to totally disrupt manufacturing supply chains,I’ll give it 9 to 16 years for this to do that globally.
Emmanuel Agudo
May 13, 2020 at 3:02 am
‘you must construct additional Pylons.’
Alvin Plays Games
May 19, 2020 at 8:53 am
what’s the blue wrist band employee is wearing on 6:25 ?
Julian Ltz
June 2, 2020 at 3:39 pm
Its used to ground the employee so he won’t accidentally destroy sensible electronics
Julian f
June 2, 2020 at 3:39 pm
Its used to ground the employee so he won’t accidentally destroy sensible electronics
Frank f
June 2, 2020 at 3:39 pm
Its used to ground the employee so he won’t accidentally destroy sensible electronics
CGPlayz
September 26, 2020 at 5:23 pm
It’s a static band. Used to ground himself so he doesn’t have the risk of damaging components with static.
Steve Hope
May 31, 2020 at 11:49 am
Why is this oddly like watching a geek tinder date?
Jose Nesto
February 22, 2021 at 4:54 am
Lol for real!
Arif Anuar
June 16, 2020 at 2:32 pm
we need this machine on mars
capitalistdingo
June 14, 2021 at 4:16 pm
I don’t want martians building rockets to come here. We have enough problems with all these humans.
Brad Briscoe
June 24, 2020 at 4:07 pm
I love the StarCraft reference
rbg 1827
July 6, 2020 at 8:12 pm
I get a fuel tank, but how do they do small intricate parts like centrifugal pump blades?
isNull isNotNull
August 14, 2020 at 2:46 am
smaller printer?
Yelectric
October 10, 2020 at 11:01 pm
isNull isNotNull that’s the secret sauce :D. Maybe there’s a chemical process on their alloy or they do nonlinear 3D printing. They print concentric rings and one has a higher tolerance between when it cools down. Enough to turn, not enough to let some liquid methane through. Hard, but maybe possible?
Rohit Maity
November 22, 2020 at 2:43 am
Using desktop metal 3d printer by using dmls process.
KAYRUNJAAVICE
June 1, 2021 at 3:35 pm
5:50 maybe using this 5 axis milling machine
Wankel Motor
July 7, 2020 at 1:11 pm
There is a reason why tanks are made of sheet metal.
It is stronger, lighter, uses less material and energy, has a lot better surface finishes, is uniform thickness, does not have voids and stresses, are faster and cheaper to make, and so on.
Also the clip of the powder laser sintering printer and the part coming out of it highly polished is fake. That kind of process gives a mat pretty rough surface finish.
isNull isNotNull
August 14, 2020 at 3:02 am
My understanding is that the tanks in rockets built by “traditional” methods were never made of sheet metal. The tanks were built from solid formed pieces of aluminum alloy, and a cnc machine removes material to form a latus framework inside the tank to save on weight while minimizing compromising rigidity. This leads to a lot of waste in rocketry over what normal industry has to deal with. So what may work for rockets, might not be practical for say, cars, or propane tanks.
FabriLAB Communications
July 9, 2020 at 2:26 pm
Guarantee they use fronius power sources. And if the don’t. They probably should.
Conor Wright
July 9, 2020 at 3:19 pm
But have you tried adding small amounts of graphene to the metal wire you are using in your 3d printer to build the actual rockets?
molly_disulfide
June 9, 2021 at 2:02 am
love the arm chair materials sciencing
SR V
July 29, 2020 at 3:22 am
20 years ago I thought about this idea and it’s now real. I have proof of that.
Skypper SC
September 18, 2020 at 10:56 pm
When a AI will replace this young man, he will probably have less smile..
Shandor
September 29, 2020 at 2:23 am
Skypper SC: Ai will never replace creativity and judgment.
Skypper SC
September 29, 2020 at 2:33 am
@Shandor Ai already create music, people faces or landscapes that didn’t exist, new shapes for industry, it also decide you could be your friend on facebook, what you could like on Tiktok, play chess or over games better than humans, pilot army planes etc
Skypper SC
September 29, 2020 at 2:39 am
Also, all your judgment can be corrupt by fakes videos created by Ai.. I’m very scared for the future…
Shandor
September 30, 2020 at 1:55 am
Skypper SC: Ai music and art are crap and you should be able to tell. It can’t pilot a plane as well as a person, because that’s a ton harder than chess. As for algorithms on Facebook and the rest, they’re so stupid that they show me ads for stuff I already bought! If they had brains or common sense, the programmers would have them offer me cheaper or better alternatives!
Shandor
September 30, 2020 at 1:57 am
Skypper SC : Fear not! Videos faked by software can be spotted by software too.
Summer Lake Photog
September 26, 2020 at 4:26 pm
Absolutely amazing. All the software design, engineering and programming hours just blows me away. Talk about “getting er done.” Kudos 👏👏👏❗️
Yelectric
October 10, 2020 at 10:59 pm
Stunning
Lukas Schwarz
October 24, 2020 at 10:19 am
Currently, I’m printing my own small liquid fueled rocket engine out of Inconel 718. I’m using an EOS M290 printer.
Dalir Kosimov
January 9, 2021 at 5:55 am
2 month update, hows it going
Lukas Schwarz
January 9, 2021 at 12:21 pm
@Dalir Kosimov first sample is currently on the printer. Stay tuned..
DLKreationZ
November 24, 2020 at 2:24 am
I don’t feel comfortable with all that eye contact.
DLKreationZ
February 6, 2021 at 2:08 am
@Nick West no that’s called being uncomfortable. If it were a woman, I’d feel the same way. Too much eye contact can make some ppl feel uncomfortable.
DLKreationZ
February 6, 2021 at 2:35 am
@Nick West did you just learn that word? Because I saw you commented the same thing on another post that just said it was “next level”. Are you throwing it around to get engagement from other users or is there another agenda? Because you can’t just use any word in any conversation. That’s just embarrassing.
Nick West
February 6, 2021 at 4:55 am
@DLKreationZ Life must be really hard for you if watching two people have a conversation and making eye contact is “uncomfortable.” I made that comment twice because ridiculous men like you have the audacity to make comments about two men making eye contact in 2021, on a video for a company that is literally 3D printing rocket components. Some people are just incapable of making progress. 🤦🏻♂️
DLKreationZ
February 6, 2021 at 5:14 am
@Nick West 😂 Why are you so pressed over these comments about eye contact? (don’t actually tell me. I genuinely don’t care ).
DLKreationZ
February 6, 2021 at 5:21 am
@Nick West wait actually keep talking. This is hilarious. I’m going to save it for Reddit 😂💀
Eugene Alvarado
November 27, 2020 at 9:42 pm
very inspiring to see some so young leading into new ways… well done…
KAONASHI
January 8, 2021 at 4:54 pm
2021 engaged.
Patrick Mclaughlin
March 13, 2021 at 8:28 pm
It’s amazing how fast all this is going on.
Otpyrc Ralph Pierre
March 20, 2021 at 3:14 pm
This is exciting technology!
Dušan Radin
May 11, 2021 at 6:04 pm
Nice. Do they actually make ships?
Loosey Goosey
May 21, 2021 at 7:51 am
They are undressing each other with their eyes.
wackywankavator
June 9, 2021 at 4:08 am
I thought metal sintering 3d printing made weaker material overall as the metal powder gets pushed away by the heating laser. Did Relativity find the holy grail of metal sintering?
youri garretsen
June 10, 2021 at 5:12 am
We’ll see, right now I can’t find any space oriented sources that are talking about this rocket. Only mainstream media (not that that’s bad, just that it’s weird that space oriented media seems uninterested). So I’m not hopefull, but happy to be proven wrong spaceX did what everyone thought was impossible not that long ago (and still pushing boundaries).
p s
June 9, 2021 at 4:34 am
Spacex will go bankrupt soon.
Stefano Morandi
June 10, 2021 at 8:38 pm
that megaprinter has some much future development potential for part fixing and fabrication on mars and moon… just send the machines and the spools and you could build so much
thrakiamaria
June 11, 2021 at 9:38 pm
nice company!!!
Grerov Ambrozoyuz
June 12, 2021 at 6:25 am
This man is fan of starcraft. heje
Reelax Outdoors
June 13, 2021 at 2:45 am
First, the cash register was born, obliterating the abaca and cash handling of the past. Then the cash register evolved, requiring people to work the checkout line. A few decades 1980s the bar code evolved to be standard. Now, we can pay without even swiping a card or paying in cash with a simple swipe of the of the hand. Even further, self-checkout was introduced and when I first saw one , I thought it was a joke But, self-checkout has evolved to be successful and proliferated into increasing standards and many retail stores are adopting this marvelous trend. As we become more and more automated as a society, retail competition gets more and more strained. Many local stores feel the pressure and end up closing down. Larger retail stores have immense supply chain options that can crush locality businesses as they heavy weight themselves into your cities, automating everything to the point that you don’t even have to leave the house to live anymore. Everything can be ordered online and delivered in some cases cheaper than the locality stores that carry the same thing.
Oh damn not sure what I did there my bad, that was a huge rant. 😤😂 my point is automation is going to ruin many careers in the next 2 decades.
Blazing Quartz
June 13, 2021 at 6:32 am
I see a chinese working …. CCP is getting all your secrets and soon they will 3D print your rockets in Beijing
King Agar
June 20, 2021 at 10:16 am
Why’s he staring into his soul