Microgravity and variable gravity help medical and pharmaceutical research. I've heard about organ 3d printing and 3-dimensional chemical crystal manufacturing. This is the NASA spinoff link : https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2020/hm_5.html
ZBLAN fiber optic cable is much clearer, which means far fewer energy consuming repeaters are needed. Can't be made on earth because gravity causes chrystals to form. This has been demonstrated already by Made In Space, now Redwire, but they've been quiet about it since then.
3d printing organs under gravity requires a support structure that would afterwards have to be removed physically or chemically. No gravity means you don't need that support structure. This would allow organs to be printed from the receiver's genes, avoiding a large chunk of the cost of transplantation: avoiding rejection of the organ by the body. The cost savings per kg of organ would allow quite a comfortable profit margin when printed in space, but much more research is needed before whole organs can be printed. We've only printed basic tissue on the ISS. During that additional research alternatives on earth could be discovered. So the techical risk for a commercial investor is huge.
High end chips can be made in space, as gravity causes unwanted chrystals to form. However, the company that was developing this found out that they could do it on a vomit comet by treating regular chips, no need for an expensive launch.
Stuff used in space could be made in space. This would allow you to bring a supply of all purpose, recycleable 'ink' rather than a supply of every tool you may need. That cuts down on supply costs, and keeping things tidy so you can find it when you need it is even more impossible without gravity. Made in space has done this ('sent' a tool to the ISS to be printed within 24 hours that an astronaut couldn't find his tool) and is currently working on making it recycleable
Quote from: high road on 06/25/2022 03:56 pmZBLAN fiber optic cable is much clearer, which means far fewer energy consuming repeaters are needed. Can't be made on earth because gravity causes chrystals to form. This has been demonstrated already by Made In Space, now Redwire, but they've been quiet about it since then.ZBLAN fiber optic cable is always held up as the example of why in-space manufacturing can work, but if that is so how come there are no factories in space making it?I think it is because the economics of making "stuff" in space isn't there yet. And launch costs are certainly a HUGE part of that, but even if getting the factory to space were free, I'm not sure the economics make sense yet for fiber optic cable.
Quote3d printing organs under gravity requires a support structure that would afterwards have to be removed physically or chemically. No gravity means you don't need that support structure. This would allow organs to be printed from the receiver's genes, avoiding a large chunk of the cost of transplantation: avoiding rejection of the organ by the body. The cost savings per kg of organ would allow quite a comfortable profit margin when printed in space, but much more research is needed before whole organs can be printed. We've only printed basic tissue on the ISS. During that additional research alternatives on earth could be discovered. So the techical risk for a commercial investor is huge.
QuoteHigh end chips can be made in space, as gravity causes unwanted chrystals to form. However, the company that was developing this found out that they could do it on a vomit comet by treating regular chips, no need for an expensive launch.I've seen no hint of modern semiconductor manufacturing being hindered by a lack of whatever zero-G solves.
QuoteStuff used in space could be made in space. This would allow you to bring a supply of all purpose, recycleable 'ink' rather than a supply of every tool you may need. That cuts down on supply costs, and keeping things tidy so you can find it when you need it is even more impossible without gravity. Made in space has done this ('sent' a tool to the ISS to be printed within 24 hours that an astronaut couldn't find his tool) and is currently working on making it recycleableAgain, from a business standpoint there just isn't enough "demand" for doing this yet. There market is puny.
As someone that has spent decades in the manufacturing world, I look forward to the future where we do manufacturing in space. However the business conditions for doing that do not yet appear to exist in order to justify the investments needed to start manufacturing in space.
As always, these types of questions are easier to answer when you don't look at the problem as a technical issue, but one guided by Supply & Demand forces...
...Exactly. Demand for organs is billions per year, but that has large technical hurdles that need to be overcome. Demand for tools in space is minimal, but the technology has been demonstrated many times on ISS and will likely be used on all commercial stations to reduce the amount of specialized tools that needs to be kept on board with little use. The products that can be made in space like high end metallic parts will first need to prove they have better material properties before aircraft designers etc can start using them in their designs. These are all items that will take a long time before the market for them matures. A lot of support by government is still required to get these technologies to maturity and allow the markets to grow. Without that, no commercial space stations will survive.
Quote from: high road on 06/27/2022 09:43 pm...Exactly. Demand for organs is billions per year, but that has large technical hurdles that need to be overcome. Demand for tools in space is minimal, but the technology has been demonstrated many times on ISS and will likely be used on all commercial stations to reduce the amount of specialized tools that needs to be kept on board with little use. The products that can be made in space like high end metallic parts will first need to prove they have better material properties before aircraft designers etc can start using them in their designs. These are all items that will take a long time before the market for them matures. A lot of support by government is still required to get these technologies to maturity and allow the markets to grow. Without that, no commercial space stations will survive.Which is really what I'm seeing, is that there is no economic demand yet that justifies making "stuff" in space for purely capitalist ends. We can only do that today by using government funded and/or supported space facilities.We can revisit this again in a few years...
I can't think of anything in particular that would require microgravity for manufacturing except perhaps certain processes that would require making perfect spheres from liquid materials (and would then potentially solidify).Where I do see a lot of usefulness is the vacuum environment of space. Thinking of uses off the top of my head, I know that a lot of resin curing is done in vacuum chambers, and having access to an infinity sized one just on the other side of the window would be really useful. Of course this process in particular requires gravity, but centrifuges could be used.
Quote from: chopsticks on 06/25/2022 01:55 pmWhere I do see a lot of usefulness is the vacuum environment of space. Thinking of uses off the top of my head, I know that a lot of resin curing is done in vacuum chambers, and having access to an infinity sized one just on the other side of the window would be really useful. Of course this process in particular requires gravity, but centrifuges could be used.Vacuum isn’t that hard to achieve on earth and the vacuum of space isn’t terribly clean. I don’t think any of the serious space manufacturing proposals rely on it?
Where I do see a lot of usefulness is the vacuum environment of space. Thinking of uses off the top of my head, I know that a lot of resin curing is done in vacuum chambers, and having access to an infinity sized one just on the other side of the window would be really useful. Of course this process in particular requires gravity, but centrifuges could be used.
ZBLAN really only makes sense for long subsea cables, where the total count of expensive underwater amplifiers is the driving reason for it's use. In common terrestrial cases, the gain from going from 8km to 15 km doesn't pan out as much as you are likely to have various taps along your route, allowing easy amplifier placement. That said, that's still a lot of cable so I doubt one Dragon's worth would put a large dent in the market. There's also was the perverse feedback loop of increasing transoceanic cable capacity inviting further traffic growth, which was why Microsoft/Google/Meta(Facebook) were partially funding their own cables.
Perhaps controversial take:1 - I think there would be very little manufacturing that would benefit. It would have to be very high value, light, and not huge quantities required, to be economical. Cheaper acces to space would improve this somewhat but it's never going to be a big market IMHO.2 - Similarly, I don't see mining in space (asteroids, etc.) to be economical in any major way unless the transport of large quantities became dirt cheap, which I'm not sure how that happens. The one potential use of mining in space is for the local settlement (Mars or moon, etc.) at or very near the settlement itself.