{"id":45772,"date":"2013-06-06T17:57:56","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T21:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbachnet.wwwmi3-ss40.a2hosted.com\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2021-07-16T18:17:53","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T22:17:53","slug":"3d-pizza-printer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/3d-pizza-printer\/","title":{"rendered":"3D Pizza Printer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3D<\/a>“Pizza printer” is all I need to hear. Now that the idea of 3D-printed<\/a> food<\/strong> (which I originally covered<\/a> back in 2010)<\/em> has taken hold.\u00a0Wesley Fenlon at Tested<\/em><\/a>\u00a0wrote<\/a> about NASA<\/strong>‘s attempts to develop a Star Trek<\/a> Replicator<\/strong> by using 3D printers<\/a> to create the space foods<\/a> of the future. Tested<\/em> explains NASA<\/a> is still a long way from replicating, Tea, Earl Gray, Hot<\/a> but they are paying attention to the prospect of 3D printed food.<\/p>\n

\"NASA<\/a>The article says the space organization recently awarded a $125,000 Small Business Innovation Research<\/a> grant to Anjan Contractor<\/a>, at Systems and Materials Research Corporation<\/a> in Austin, TX, to develop a universal food synthesizer<\/strong>. The NASA grant, according to Tested<\/em>, is for a 3D printer<\/strong> that could supply food to astronauts on long trips. The first demo would probably be on the International Space Station<\/a> and then spread to a lunar colony or an expedition to Mars.<\/p>\n

But what is most important to 99.9% of us that will never get into space, and the long-term business case of 3D food printers is the pizza printer<\/strong>. In an article,<\/a> Quartz<\/a><\/em>, reports that “Contractor\u2019s ‘pizza printer’ is still at the conceptual stage, and he will begin building it within two weeks.” The Quartz<\/em> article describes how the pizza printer would work, “It works by first ‘printing’ a layer of dough, which is baked at the same time it\u2019s printed, by a heated plate at the bottom of the printer. Then it lays down a tomato base, ‘which is also stored in a powdered form, and then mixed with water and oil,’ says Contractor. Finally, the pizza is topped with the delicious-sounding ‘protein layer<\/strong>, which could come from any source, including animals, milk or plants.”<\/p>\n