It would be ideal to also include the plans for orbiting data centres as well as satellite communication clusters in this very nice resource (since those are entirely _also_ necessary as part of manufacturing in space: alerting, measurement, telemetry, etc.)
> We need new economic drivers for spaceflight. Something new and potentially bigger than any existing space industry such as telecommunications, remote sensing, launch and research. This is the missing piece to speed up development for the exciting Star Trek-like future. I believe in-space manufacturing will be the kickstarter and foundation.
Has this sort of thing actually worked out historically? I’d expect factories to be build in space if it was economically beneficial, and I’d expect cheap space flight to be a requirement rather than an outcome. We didn’t start working inside cities to justify busses, right?
To answer your questions, I think it's more of a virtuous cycle thing. The comment from the page is basically saying IMHO "We need the other side of the virtuous cycle that will push the tech side to catch up". A motivating goal.
I imagine trade was a big driver for a ton of maritime / transport technological achievements prior to space, and is a good example of "Lots of people can get rich and get things they want for cheap at the same time", which benefited from reliable transport from afar.
As for factories directly, demand of any kind spurs innovation of production, innovation spurs learning and cost reduction, reduces prices, increases demand ... so there's somewhat of a virtuous cycle there.
All I think they are saying is "let's do that for space - find me a nail for our current hammer'
There are a variety of reasons that space manufacturing could be a good idea from a physics standpoint. These typically range from availability of energy, limited need for environmental regulation provided byproducts don’t fall to earth, or do so at velocities which would destroy the compounds of concern, or availability of materials.
If an asteroid is captured, or large scale mining of the moon takes place - it would not make sense to ship raw materials to earth vs. final products.
Which gives us a rough roadmap for where this industry would go if it goes anywhere, we’d expect that manufacturing of gravity sensitive or highly toxic products would move to space first, followed by energy or resource intensive industries.
Varda Space is working on this. The term "factories in space" in their case doesn't match the images it brings to mind. They use relatively small devices that run chemical processes for medication production that work much better in zero gravity. I understood it in essence to work that way that you shoot the device into space, the reactions take place and the thing crashes back to earth for collection. Supposedly it has a huge cost advantage and should fit what the author wants.
I’m just a layman and all, but how in god’s name could it be cheaper to launch it into space than to create a large manufacturing process on the ground?
When I hear "Varda" I think of the 1980 movie Battle Beyond the Stars. Any connection?
Concerning the business model, I can't help but think that small processes don't generate much material, resulting in a high cost. If there's a market for the result, then their business model is always at risk that some Earth-based chemist develops a cheaper method which works at 1 gravity.
Yeah I feel like often it's the complete opposite. For example at the start of the industrial revolution engines were invented to pump water out of deep coal mines because even with the first engines horrendous inefficiency at the bottom of the mine coal was basically free at the manual labor to pump water had gotten to expensive.
So similarly, spaceflight needs some initial process, say mining or a zero g industrial process, that would drive the further building of infrastructure and productivity.
TLDR: in real world things are messy and highly correlated.
It is chicken and egg problem. Higher volume makes things cheaper^1 because of manufacturing scale and diluting R&D expenses. Higher volume also means more working capital and higher ROI on R&D. That R&D can make things cheaper (or same price but better features) which drives volume. Industries can start from either end of this. For example there a lot of battery chemistry and solar cell advancements are because high volume drove R&D investment. Current boom in battery manufacturing largely comes from one U.S. company and China making EVs a priority and driving volume. That volume is driving R&D which is increasing capability and driving down unit cost and factory scale up which is driving down unit cost. On the other end of the spectrum are VC backed companies burning cash to make up volume in hopes that R&D will catch up and make them profitable.
Note 1: there is a huge assumption here about input availability and pricing model. For example plastics currently enjoy being dirt cheap party because they are a byproduct of oil production. On the other hand Helium supply is limited and it's price reflects that.
A few years ago there were actually two companies trying to manufacture "zblan optical fiber" (which has better light transmission than normal optical fiber) in orbit: Made In Space, and FOMS. Both of their websites are tombstones now, afaik. The former was also attempting 3d printing in space, and was bought by Redwire.
Fascinating tech, but seemed to go nowhere.
There are now several 'manufacturing in space platform' companies, like Varda. It's not enough to just be a platform. There needs to be an actual killer app.
Wishful thinking. Like Mars, on which we'd already be by now based on promises, but we aren't getting anywhere closer anytime soon...
Meanwhile we've been losing the ability to make all kinds of stuff to China, or severely degrade the skills and expertise of the people in places like Boeing compared to the nerds that build the original planes in the 60s and 70s...
The Current Market Size <> Timeline has "Pharmaceuticals", specifically, "space-grown crystals".
This has been tried for decades. It has not proved all that beneficial. Certainly not enough to be a clear economic advantage for doing more in microgravity.
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