3D CAD, Printing and Tooling in the Manufacture of "Black Projects"

[Han]

Hello all, does anybody know anything about the use of 3D printing, tooling and design in the late 1970s early 80s either by the US, or contractors working for the US.

I recently saw a talk by a guy named "Michael Schratt" and I believe he implied that 3D computer technology was used to design and manufacture the F117 (Nighthawk) and the B2 (Spirit).

After thought:
If they did indeed have that kind of tech in the 1970s I wonder what they have now?


Any and all ideas, information and theories welcome.
Thank you in advance.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

So what about replicators?

 

[Han]

I had to look on Wikipedia because I guessed that you referring to star trek Replicators.
Anyway apparently Nestle have been researching a sort of replicator:


"In the real world
In 2014, researchers at Nestlé were reported as working on technology comparable to the replicator, with the goal of providing food tailored to an individual's nutritional requirements.[6]


In 2015, a Star Trek-inspired Replicator-Emulator is proposed to robotically grow, print or assemble not only food, but also shelter, energy, transportation and even whole towns. #WPProjects assigned 250 renewable automation projects - one project to every country in the world - and it also laid out the important social programs needed to protect incomes and bolster economies as societies completed their 2-year Renewable Automations projects. [7]


In comparison, 3D printers, which are now a mainstream technology and have a range of impressive and important capabilities (including shaping prostheses or making organs) are decidedly different, in that they do not create material "ex nihilo" (out of nothing), or perhaps more accurately, out of nuclei or atoms or programmed patterns of information, but instead, like regular printers, must use already pre-existing corporal material.


Also, 3D printers are limited in the materials that they can print. Currently only materials that can be easily fused together via extrusion or sintering processes can be used by 3D printer technology — generally plastics, metals, and clays. However food, concrete, and a few other materials have been successfully printed on a limited scale.


Imperial College London physicists have discovered how to create matter from light - a feat thought impossible when the idea was first theorised 80 years ago. In just one day in Imperial's Blackett Physics Laboratory, three physicists worked out a relatively simple way to physically prove a theory first devised by scientists Breit and Wheeler in 1934.[8]"

((source)):Replicator (Star Trek) - Wikipedia