Additive Snack

Fabian Alefeld interviews Omar Mireles, Director of Manufacture and Materials at Space Nuclear Power Corporation (Space Nukes), about his career spanning NASA, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos and how additive manufacturing (AM) reshaped space hardware development. Omar describes early exposure to SLS prototyping, graduate work in nuclear materials and propulsion, building nuclear materials labs at NASA Marshall, and later leading AM efforts for liquid rocket engines and refractory metals.  
He explains how AM accelerates iteration, enables complex geometries, part consolidation, and weight reduction, and where traditional methods still dominate depending on production rate. The conversation covers refractory metal challenges (supply chain, oxygen sensitivity, post-processing, inspection) and nuclear reactor basics, generations, and regulatory barriers to AM adoption. Omar outlines Space Nukes’ goal of delivering safe, affordable, reliable power anywhere in the solar system, noting heat rejection as a key space constraint, Krusty’s 2018 test heritage, potential AM roles in heat exchangers, and an aggressive ~2-year flight timeline depending on regulation and mission. 
02:26 Omar Early Motivation 
03:08 NASA Co-ops and First AM 
07:59 Stirling Radiation Research 
20:07 Refractory Metals AM Lab 
21:31 Los Alamos to Space Nukes 
25:14 Did AM Change Space Race 
31:46 Where AM Flies Today 
37:41 Rocket Engines Print vs Traditional 
41:15 Refractory Alloys Challenges 
46:39 Where Refractories Make Sense 
47:05 Will Refractory AM Grow 
49:39 NASA Metal AM Handbook Origins 
56:37 How Nuclear Reactors Work 
01:13:02 Additive Manufacturing in Nuclear 
01:18:31 What Space Nukes Builds 
01:19:36 Why Space Nuclear Power Matters 
01:25:20 Why Space Needs Nukes 
01:37:47 Krusty Test Proof 
01:41:18 Heat Rejection Challenge 
01:49:25 Timeline and First Missions

Host Fabian Alefeld interviews Dean Bartles, President and CEO of the Manufacturing Technology Deployment Group (behind NCDMM, Advanced Manufacturing International, and America Makes), about manufacturing’s evolution, defense industrial base challenges, and additive manufacturing. Bartles recounts his career from shop-floor machining and industrial engineering to international defense manufacturing programs and 31 years through successive owners culminating in General Dynamics, then leading NCDMM and forming a parent organization to expand technology deployment. They discuss consolidation and contracting barriers that pushed small/medium firms out of defense, productivity gains from automation, reshoring momentum driven by tariffs and new investment, and workforce shortages and training pathways via trades, community colleges, and SME/Tooling U. Bartles highlights AI for process monitoring and adaptive control in laser powder bed fusion, the promise of low-cost desktop FFF for drones, the need for shared data and improved repeatability, and sustainability efforts including the Additive Manufacturing Green Trade Association. 
 
00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 
 
02:54 Dean Manufacturing Origins 
 
04:18 Global Defense Career Path 
 
06:05 Leading NCDMM and America Makes 
 
10:44 Defense Base Decline and Industry 4.0 
 
18:14 Reshoring and Global Models 
 
22:17 AI Capital and Process Control 
 
35:25 Open Data and Repeatability Challenge 
 
38:24 Defense Adoption and Drone Boom 
 
44:08 Workforce Pathways and Community Colleges 
 
50:04 Sustainability and Greener AM 
 
54:27 Closing ABL Always Be Learning

Fabian Alefeld welcomes back Thomas Pomorski of Ursa Major to discuss developments over the past year across three focus areas: hypersonics, solid rocket motors, and in-space propulsion. Pomorski reports more than nine hypersonic missions flown with the reusable, ~80% 3D-printed Hadley engine and two successful test flights of the storable Draper engine with AFRL, plus progress on Ursa’s LINX solid rocket motor manufacturing approach using additive for tooling and cases to enable flexible “unit cell” scaling. They cover key hypersonics challenges around affordability and manufacturability and why a storable liquid rocket approach can reduce testing complexity. Much of the conversation focuses on AI’s current value in development: rapidly prototyping slicer features and scan strategies, building data-fusion and monitoring tools via EOS APIs, and enabling small teams to operate with much higher productivity, while noting production validation remains challenging.
00:00 Welcome Back Thomas
01:48 Ursa Major Year Update
02:37 Hypersonic Flight Milestones
04:05 Solid Motors and LINX
05:21 Additive Scale Up Tools
06:39 Hypersonic Cost Challenge
11:58 Solid Motor Unit Cells
15:37 Additive Geometry vs Supply
18:01 AI in Additive Workflows
24:33 AI Productivity Multiplier
29:33 Live Claude Slicer Demo
35:13 Prompting Claude Code
36:35 Sharing Team Workflows
38:40 Production AI Readiness
42:20 Slicer Feature Results
44:49 Closed Loop Optimization
46:46 AI Built Web Monitor
52:59 Automation Roadmap
01:00:12 Verifying Hatch Strategy
01:03:07 Advice For Students
01:08:29 Wrap Up And Thanks

Fabian Alefeld hosts Karl Littau, CTO of Sakuu, to discuss why rechargeable battery manufacturing has changed little in decades and how Sakuu is rethinking it with additive approaches. Littau explains conventional thick-film slurry coating and stacked anode/cathode layers, noting heavy use of copper and aluminum and high costs driven largely by bill of materials. He outlines battery basics (anode, cathode, electrolyte) and contrasts lithium-ion with solid-state concepts, where solids replace liquid electrolytes but face commercialization challenges. Sakuu’s initial product targets electrode coating by shifting from wet, solvent-based processes to dry powder-bed methods, enabling powder reclaim/reuse, removing toxic solvents, reducing equipment size (e.g., long drying ovens), and potentially increasing throughput. The conversation also covers future possibilities like multi-material patterning, arbitrary shapes, bipolar designs that reduce metal, and broader impacts on EVs, grid storage, and electrification.
 
00:00 Welcome and Topic
01:32 Why Batteries Need Change
04:13 Cost Drivers Today
07:53 Sakuu Additive Approach
13:09 Battery Basics Explained
18:30 Dry Powder Manufacturing
26:10 Speed and Footprint Gains
28:47 Scaling and Supply Chain
32:27 Future Shapes and Structures
35:42 Solid State Readiness
37:48 Sakuu Origin Story
40:31 Roadmap and Industry Impact
42:34 Electrification Future Vision
49:48 Wrap Up and Thanks

Fabian Alefeld hosts Pan Michaleris, founder of PanOptimization (PanX), and Erik Denlinger, co-founder and chief engineer, to discuss the evolution and role of simulation and finite element analysis (FEA) in additive manufacturing. Pan shares his background as a Penn State professor and entrepreneur (including a prior company acquired by Autodesk) and explains how simulation helps reduce costly trial-and-error builds by predicting distortion, temperature, stress, buckling, cracking, and recoater risks, while moving toward closed-loop manufacturing-to-design workflows and property prediction. Erik outlines PanX’s commercial capabilities - fast thermo-mechanical simulation for very large parts, distortion compensation, and dwell-time optimization - and describes proof-of-concept work on controlling melt quality and hardness via parameter modulation. They cover adoption in aerospace/defense and new space, qualification implications, integration with build-prep workflows (e.g., EOS/Velosis), and cautious, validation-focused views on AI surrogate models.
00:00 Welcome and Episode Preview
01:13 Meet Pan and Erik
01:59 Pan’s Journey to PanX
03:59 Erik’s Origin Story
05:10 FEA History and the Elephant Test
08:32 Why Additive Needs Simulation
10:23 Closing the Design Manufacturing Loop
14:33 PanX Today Core Capabilities
17:30 From Distortion to Material Properties
20:25 Making Simulation Usable for Engineers
27:06 Workflow Integration and Automation
29:44 From Failures to Design
30:41 Who Uses PanX Today
32:41 Simulation for Qualification
35:17 Layerwise Parameter Control
38:51 Why FEA Is Hard
41:38 AI and Surrogate Models
46:53 Future Material Tailoring
48:37 Roadmap Workflow Integration
52:27 Closing Thoughts and Wrap