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How long until we can torrent a set and print it in 3D?
You already can, the shape of the Lego brick fell into public domain, you can find legal knock off of their design (on AliExpress for example). The problem is that plastic and electricity cost so much you don’t save a lot compared to an industrialised environment.
To be fair to Lego, which I agree is crazy expensive, they have tighter tolerances in flaws than NASA does. I work in manufacturing, through a different type, and tolerances that tight mean a huge amount of your production becomes scrap.
You could discuss the whether perfectionism is worth the waste, and that’s a valid point, but Lego is at least delivering a solid product
They make plastic though. Surely they recycle the scrap
Lego bricks are made using virgin plastic, which I assume means all scrap is not recycled and used to make more Lego.
Some parts, like flexible parts and transparent parts are made using more sustainable materials, whether that consists of some recycled material or plant derived plastics.
What a rediculous, and untrue, comparison to make. NASA (1) isn’t a consumer manufacturing company, (2) makes an absolutely insane variety of types science experiments from space telescopes to supersonic planes, (3) absolutely makes/uses parts with orders of magnitude tighter tolerances than Lego holds.
Once I worked out that Lego work to the same tolerances as the transistors in a Pentium II CPU. It’s probably a better example than NASA as NASA makes huge things that don’t require submillimetre tolerances and tiny precise instruments that couldn’t have been made a couple of decades ago.
