Every now and then you can see crewmembers carrying paper manuals or notes around. Is this all pre-printed on earth / handwritten or is there actually a printer on the ISS?
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2They can always 3d-print their manuals ;) – SF. May 31 '16 at 08:36
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1You mean like in Braille? :-) – flawr May 31 '16 at 09:08
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Like printing press dies. extruded or embossed lettering :) – SF. May 31 '16 at 09:18
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...or maybe @SF. meant this thing at first but then liked the embosser idea better? – uhoh May 31 '16 at 09:45
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1@uhoh: I meant this. But if you print words alone, the thing would fall apart. Instead, you can print the sheet, leaving the words out. A spray paint stencil would be a more appropriate analogy. – SF. May 31 '16 at 10:07
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related question – uhoh May 31 '16 at 14:03
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Yes, according to Robert Frost , NASA Instructor and Flight Controller, the ISS has a Epson Stylus Color 800 mounted on the aft wall of Destiny.
Epson Stylus Color 800 from 1996
The printer is also visible in the International Space Station Panoramic Tour provided by ESA.
ForgeMonkey
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1I don't actually see a printer inside that red circle. Can you point to it? Screenshot from the 3D interactive walkthrough from photos by record-holding ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti taken in June 2015 look very different. While Robert Frosts's Quora post is dated March 2015, where is that photo from? – uhoh May 31 '16 at 13:01
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Looks like they bought a new printer when they cleaned up. It looks like a complete, enclosed paper cassette sticking out of the top, rather than the open tray on the Epson. I wonder if this is now a special zero-G-friendly printer. Can't use gravity feed anymore! – uhoh May 31 '16 at 13:33
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2@uhoh in theory you could spin up the entire station anytime you want to print. – John Dvorak May 31 '16 at 13:58
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@JanDvorak now why didn't I think of that? I was going to put it in a giant hamster cage along with an UPS. – uhoh May 31 '16 at 14:05
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1I can actually imagine an astronaut grabbing the printer, then spinning in the middle of the station, holding the printer in outstretched arms... – SF. May 31 '16 at 15:56
