"Butch" Wilmore needed a socket wrench. That's a problem since he's 155 vertical miles from the nearest Ace Hardware.

Wilmore is a Commander on the International Space Station, and when he mentioned to his colleagues on the ground that he needed a wrench, they got to work.

First, they designed it in CAD, then sent the file to NASA where it was transmitted to the ISS. The code was pumped into a 3D printer on the station and after being built layer by layer, Wilmore had his tool.

It didn't take a rocket or months to get there, and that was the goal of . The designed and built the 3D printer specifically to rapidly prototype parts in a zero G environment, and the wrench was the first tool ever printed on the station. Read how it went down over at .

If we're going to venture out into space in a serious way, at some point we're going to need to be…

Photos: NASA