Very cool: Hybrid Machine Combines Milling and Additive Manufacturing
By using laser deposition to build up the part, while employing milling throughout the process to machine critical features as the part is taking shape, the machine can produce a component through additive manufacturing while also producing it to its completed tolerances within the same cycle.
And it does pieces roughly twice the linear dimensions of commonly-available sintering-based machines.
Not that long ago, people were speculating on the applications of 3D printing in lunar or martian settlements, or on board the ships going there and back. At the rate things are going, we’ll be printing the spacecraft themselves soon.