June 17, 2025: One element of the 18th Century industrial revolution was standardized components for machines. This made it possible to mass produce complex machines and keep them operational over long periods because there was always a supply of replacement parts to exchange for those that were damaged or just worn out because of sustained use. Before this replacement parts had to be hand made by a skilled craftsman. Mass produced components and spare parts were a key factor in the explosive growth of manufacturing during the industrial revolution.

Demand for faster fabrication and delivery of parts led to a series of revolutionary improvements that continues to this day. The latest innovation is called Metabots. These use magnetized plastic that can respond to an electronic command to form itself into whatever shape is needed for a new part or replacement part. Unlike previous parts manufacturing, Metabots are suitable for replacing components of electronic equipment or quickly and cheaply fabricating components for a new computer or radio-electronic device. For decades there has been software that enables developers to create plans for new devices. The Metabot enables the designer to quickly move to creating new components. Metabots join a growing line of machines that create parts for other machines.

Metabots will eventually show up in Ukraine where American military aid included a shipping container size 3D-printing drone factories for Ukraine.

Ukrainians are already using a 3D-printing device that creates drones. This portable drone factory fits inside shipping containers, can produce drones of any size and build anywhere from a few dozen a month to over 500 depending on the design. A feature of these 3D-printing factories is that they can be placed in remote areas and blend into the background. These operations are semi-automated manufacturing facilities that can be operated by only a few people. Power can be supplied by generators if local electric power is unavailable. Automated manufacturing makes it possible to quickly produce large numbers of drones. Ukraine created modern drone warfare and one of their advantages was their willingness to continually innovate with new drone designs or features for existing drones. These 3D-printing factories enabled the Ukrainians to quickly modify a drone design and put into production at underground factories or hundreds of smaller drone manufacturing operations all over the country. Some of these are used by men in the military whose specialty is the development, production and use of drones.

The pioneer in 3D manufacturing is Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, popularly known as SpaceX. There was a need for finding or creating technologies and techniques that made it possible to rapidly develop more efficient rockets and Satellite Launch Vehicles/SLVs.

SpaceX inspired European countries, which had already developed some of the tech that SpaceX used to build their novel rockets and SLVs. One of these techs was 3D printing of metal components for rocket engines and other major SLV components needed in small quantities. Traditional manufacturing methods such as forging, machining, and stamping metal are expensive and time-consuming. Change has been coming since the 1980s when the concept of 3D printing tech arrived. Soon it was realized that this tech was evolving to the point where it could handle metal components and complex objects could be built with a 3D printing device. For manufacturers, this was a major revolution for supplying small numbers of complex systems or developing prototypes for testing and further refinement. Spacecraft developers and manufacturers were among the first to make very visible use of this new tech. The first decade of the 21st Century saw the appearance of more effective 3D printers that could handle metal parts of different sizes and complexity that were equal to parts manufactured with traditional methods.

SpaceX, an SLV design and manufacturing operation, was founded in 2002 with the goal of breaking into a market controlled by long-time suppliers. At the time these older firms had formed a legal cartel that monopolized satellite launch services for the U.S. government. This meant that after 2006 all this SLV business went to a monopoly called United Launch Alliance or ULA. This is composed of Lockheed Martin, using Atlas 5 rockets and Boeing with its Delta 4. These two firms dominated U.S. space launches for over half a century and in 2006 they officially monopolized it. But not for long, as the future arrived unexpectedly.

One of the existing techs that SpaceX applied to their innovative rocket and SLV designs was 3D printing of components, especially for the smaller, liquid fuel rockets used in the final stage of an SLV to put the payload into orbit. These final stage rockets required small thruster engines to maneuver satellites into a specific orbit or maneuver space vehicles when they were docking with space stations, or any chore that required that kind of precision maneuvering in a gravity-free environment.

The other SpaceX innovation was rocket boosters designed to deploy landing struts, and with engines designed to use less power and fuel to enable the booster vehicle to land intact and be used again and again. No government-operated program was willing to pay to make this work. Engineers grew more and more confident of making it work but no NASA bureaucrat or SLV manufacturer would take the risk. The founders of SpaceX thrived on risk and made it work, much to the consternation of government space programs everywhere. NASA soon accepted reusable boosters as a low-risk tech and began giving SpaceX launch and design contracts. As each of these deals worked, SpaceX got more contracts and more commercial firms got into the business.

Now Ukrainian companies or small partnerships are using 3D printing to aid the war effort. Wars always provide a sense of urgency and willingness to try anything that might work. For Ukraine, 3D printing worked.

Innovations like Metabots are not new, but an evolution from earlier innovations. For example, in 2009 a British firm developed a new substance, d3O that the British military believed would be useful in making soldiers helmets more bulletproof. Normally, d3O is a goo. But when you hit it, the goo instantly turns into a solid. Not a bulletproof solid, but sufficient to allow for the design of more comfortable sporting equipment. Things like knee pads, gloves for skiers and others who are at risk of hitting things. The goo can be incorporated in clothing as well, and provide more protection for those doing jobs, or recreation, that need protection from falls or getting hit by something.

While the British Army sees a possibility of additional protection from bullets and fragments, by using d3O inside helmets, the troops see 3dO as more useful for things like knee pads and gloves, or even pants and shirts. While lots of soldiers get wounded by bullets and fragments, far more are injured by hitting elbows, hands or knees on hard surfaces. This has made kneepads and tactical gloves, with hard caps covering the knuckles, so popular in the combat zone.

While senior officers obsess over combat casualties, the troops are more concerned with combat injuries. Sure, the infantry are anxious about getting killed or wounded, but the injuries are a daily problem. At the height of combat in the 2003-11 Iraq war, combat troops had a five percent chance of getting killed or wounded during a 12 month tour. But they were ten times more likely to incur some painful, although usually not disabling, injury from the rough and tumble of moving around a battlefield or rocky terrain. New clothing items made from d3O goo could have prevented a lot of those bumps, broken bones and bruises. Thus while the officers fret over the possibility of troops getting killed, the troops themselves are more concerned with the certainty of getting injured out there.