Notes on extraterrestrial applications of 3D-printing with regard to self-replicating machines

We suggest that 3D printing offers potential as a universal constructing machine that may be programmed to construct any configuration of robotic mechanism. The most difficult components of such an end-to-end machine are the actuators and the controllers. To that end, we present initial progress in attempting to develop 3D-printable electric motors and electronic circuitry. Our specific application is in a lunar environment to manufacture lunar resources into a robotic infrastructure with productive capacity.