Printing in metal takes it to the next level...plastic is for decoration or maybe a model for lost wax/plastic casting.

@ Threesixty There are a lot of things made of plastic that are neither decorations or molds.

Printing metals is an incredible future. Next is printing composites.

This is a wonderful technology. One side effect is that it is obvious that we will need a lot less employees in the manufacturing industry as a consequence. We are setting ourselves up for a disaster as social policy must advance as quickly as technology and no one is paying attention to evolving social policy and economics to assure that people do well as technology eliminates the need for human labor.

doesn't 3 D printing require gravity to hold the medium in place while it hardens?
how do they plan to deal with the toxic fumes from the manufacturing process?

I believe I saw an article on here describing a rail gun that could launch solids into space inexpensively. I didn't see much value in it at the time but if it could launch the printing material up to the 3-D printer then the possibilities are endless... You could print a huge space station at a fraction of the cost...

Bypass the need to launch heavy payloads destined for the Moon and Mars from Earth and save time and money.
How do you figure that? The printer will have mass, and unless you plan on mining the raw material, from an asteriod (no time or money saved there) the raw materials also have to go up into space.
Maybe picking up some of the stray junk spinning around up there, grind it up?

i think Justfly25 had the ultimate concept.using high G's to put raw materials in to space then having the ability to manufacture. finally a real game changer.

@toolman65:
It depends on the process. This one doesn't need gravity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkUVURLkxS4

I hope they make a sealed box for it so metallic microdust does not float around the station!