When the nearest Depot is out of reach and Amazon.com doesn’t deliver, finding spare parts or a new tool can be a challenge. That can be true whether you’re orbiting through space or in a shantytown in Kenya. In recent years, with the spread and increased sophistication of 3D printers, NASA has been exploring a new solution: printing what it needs—so far at the International Space Station (ISS), but aiming one day to use the technology to help enable crewed missions into deep space.

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The same idea appealed to a group of young innovators then working at Johnson Space Center, who hope to bring the technology to developing countries, where they believe it could alleviate some difficulties facing entrepreneurs and aid workers.

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Most 3D printers extrude streams of heated plastic, metal, or other material to build objects, layer by layer. The printers follow designs created on a computer […]

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