How cheap could space hardware potentially be made?

[Vultur]

Assuming for the sake of argument that extremely low launch costs are achieved somehow - incredibly quick & cheap reuse for a future version or derivative of Starship, SpinLaunch, laser launch system, space fountain/space elevator/etc, whatever - could space hardware (assuming sufficient mass production) be made as cheap as Earth hardware?

There was a project called PhoneSat to use smartphone computers to run cubesats, and it worked, which suggests that the way consumer electronics is made is not totally incompatible with space. Those were in LEO,  so radiation was less of a problem than deep space, but if we're assuming truly cheap launch costs it's probably cheaper to add mass for shielding than to change the electronics.

I'm not sure how PhoneSat handled thermal issues. It seems to me (naively) that thermal issues would actually be worse in LEO, since the spacecraft is going from day to night every 45 minutes or so; in permanent sunlight, the thermal environment is pretty constant.

[redneck]

It seems likely that space hardware will remain more expensive for quite some time even assuming modest launch costs. Aviation has a situation where a $20.00 part for a car becomes a $100.00 part for an airplane mainly due to regulations. Starlink seems to be heading in the direction you're thinking though I don't have any real knowledge.  Henry Spencer has been involved in some small satellites using stock electronics. Says that they worked fine in LEO. I think there was mention of triple redundancy with voting.

Though if individuals spending their own money are in a competitive industry, it may happen much sooner than I expect. As long as heavy regulation doesn't interfere. 

[Paul451]

Aviation has a situation where a $20.00 part for a car becomes a $100.00 part for an airplane mainly due to regulations.

There's a big difference between parts intended to keep people alive, or emergency systems they might need, versus components intended for low-cost unmanned spacecraft.

[Proponent]

I have not yet listened to it, but the current episode Aviation Week's Check 6 podcast is entitled "Why do satellites still cost so much?".

[Bob Shaw]

I think it is time to turn the clock back to the original aviation construction material: wood. Constructing satellite components out of eco-friendly, lightweight and inexpensive wood using modern techniques should be the way forward!

The first NASA Lunar landers used wooden components!

[Bob Shaw]

A great deal of the $2 lightbulb which costs $100 is down to stock management overheads, staff training and safety costs and the like. Strict cost charging is now the norm and reflects reality.

[Robotbeat]

Starlink uses terrestrial solar cells, an assembly process derived from terrestrial solar panel lines, and shies away from expensive manufacturing methods like CNC and metal 3D printing, focusing on things like casting and sheet metal fabrication.

There fundamentally is no reason space hardware should be any more expensive than terrestrial except for lower volumes, which is changing.

[Coastal Ron]

In the early part of my career I worked for companies that made military electronics and companies that made consumer electronics. A big difference between the two is the operating environment that they have to survive, and space can be harsh.

For instance, many consumer grade electronics have operating temperature ranges that would fail in space, and that is because they can be cheaper if they only need to operate in places where humans can survive. But for space, you need electronics that have a wider range of operation, and that means a combination of more manufacturing processes, more costly materials, and stricter acceptance criteria.

SpaceX, as one example, has shown that within their Dragon spacecraft, which is thermally controlled internally, that they can deal with radiation issues by increasing the number of computers, so that if one goes offline (or temporarily fails) because of radiation issues, that the others can take over temporarily. So while the individual cost of the computer is the same as a non-space related use case, the cost is higher overall because of the added redundancy.

And I think in general the cost increases for space may be because of potential failure modes. So for a space station, what happens if air is lost in a module, but then the module is fixed and reoccupied? If the systems in that module are not hardened to survive in a vacuum, like displays, then the cost of that failure could be very high. So spending more on systems that can survive a vacuum would be more expensive, but maybe better insurance.

Also, if you are talking about human-rated systems vs hardware-only systems like a Starlink, then hardware-only systems can have a much higher failure rate.

Kind of like talking about the cost of snorkeling versus the cost of diving down to 100m underwater. I have a friend that is a professional diver that goes to 100m, and the cost of his equipment is much higher not only because of the additional systems he needs, but also because of the higher quality that is required.

So from that standpoint space will never be as cheap to support as the surface of the Earth. But we are finding many ways to significantly reduce the cost of doing things in space by rethinking the business models previously used.

[Greg Hullender]

I think it is time to turn the clock back to the original aviation construction material: wood. Constructing satellite components out of eco-friendly, lightweight and inexpensive wood using modern techniques should be the way forward!

The first NASA Lunar landers used wooden components!

Japan has you covered: Read about Lignosat. Apparently wood handles vacuum pretty well. No word on how well trees grow there though.

[Robotbeat]

Never say never. Earth is a humid and highly oxidizing environment with a freeze/thaw cycle and weather. The “never” argument doesn’t pass muster.

The reason Starlink is cheaper is due almost entirely to manufacturing approaches and volume, not reliability. Vast majority of space hardware has been CNCed or similar, not because CNC is better necessarily, but because it’s cheaper for low volume. Sheet metal is a little trickier to design for than CNC, but it need not be any less safe.

Automotive manufacturing meets all the environmental extremes (has to operate in hot and cold, humid and dry, dusty, etc. it also has to be safe and meet exacting reliability measures. But it’s cheap because the volumes are enormous, tens of thousands to millions of units.

It’s really strange how a lot of people just are completely ignorant of the differences in costs between the different low vs high volume manufacturing methods, or even how huge of a difference volume makes even using just CNC milling (due to setup time, CAM, tooling, fixturing, etc).

Going from 1 of a thing to 50 of a thing has about a factor of 8 cost reduction… and that’s just the same manufacturing method! Switch to high pressure injection casting or sheet metal redesign, and you can get a factor of 100 or more improvement in cost per kg. Plus, manufacturing is often much smaller than the engineering costs even at low volume. Factors of 1000 or more cost reduction is pretty reasonable when comparing low to very high volume production (millions of units).

[Coastal Ron]

Never say never. Earth is a humid and highly oxidizing environment with a freeze/thaw cycle and weather. The “never” argument doesn’t pass muster.

If this debate is about the relatively benign space environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), then maybe we could get close to the same cost. But overall space is a harsh environment, and there is no getting around that.

The reason Starlink is cheaper is due almost entirely to manufacturing approaches and volume, not reliability.

Yep, as I said, rethinking business models will get us closer.

Automotive manufacturing meets all the environmental extremes (has to operate in hot and cold, humid and dry, dusty, etc. it also has to be safe and meet exacting reliability measures. But it’s cheap because the volumes are enormous, tens of thousands to millions of units.

All true. However is every electronic or mechanical system we need available from the automotive industry here on Earth? If not, then you aren't buying "off the shelf" components, and you need to special order or create workarounds (i.e. higher redundancy, additional cooling or protection systems, etc.)

It’s really strange how a lot of people just are completely ignorant of the differences in costs between the different low vs high volume manufacturing methods, or even how huge of a difference volume makes even using just CNC milling (due to setup time, CAM, tooling, fixturing, etc).

I've planned or schedule one-off military builds and high volume consumer electronic product production lines. So I do have some perspective on this.

And on the whole we are agreeing more than disagreeing. I think my assumption is that what we need for space won't always be found already in production here on Earth, so some low volume custom production will always be a part of the space hardware supply chain. In other words, some components may achieve the goal of being the same cost, but overall product costs for space hardware will always be higher due to the nature of the environment that they need to operate.

And we see this here on Earth with the same products used in the military for use on land and at sea. The Navy versions always have additional overhead costs for protecting the various electrical and mechanical systems from salt water.

[Robotbeat]

The point is that space may have its own high volume.

Starlink (except for subcomponents like the cells) is obviously a custom design. Yet, because the high volume (thousands of satellites per year), they can get nearly-automotive costs by building them using automotive manufacturing approaches (sheet metal, casting, etc).

[Texl1649]

Once space hardware is getting produced autonomously in space, the real cost will be limited only to the cost to provide the energy of the production.  A colony on Mars will be very expensive to establish and maintain, possibly for the first 10-20 years, but then the automation should enable a self-sufficiency, if wars/violence can be avoided (which is nominally doubtful, given human history).  Asteroid mining should be a long-term objective kept in mind. 

[Robotbeat]

Once space hardware is getting produced autonomously in space, the real cost will be limited only to the cost to provide the energy of the production.  A colony on Mars will be very expensive to establish and maintain, possibly for the first 10-20 years, but then the automation should enable a self-sufficiency, if wars/violence can be avoided (which is nominally doubtful, given human history).  Asteroid mining should be a long-term objective kept in mind.

I think "autonomously produced in space" is not a useful metric, because it's just not predictable.

[InterestedEngineer]

And I think in general the cost increases for space may be because of potential failure modes. So for a space station, what happens if air is lost in a module, but then the module is fixed and reoccupied? If the systems in that module are not hardened to survive in a vacuum, like displays, then the cost of that failure could be very high. So spending more on systems that can survive a vacuum would be more expensive, but maybe better insurance.

If medium volume is 10x less cost than low volume, as another poster demonstrated, then no, it doesn't make sense to "spend more on systems that can survive a vacuum"

It's cheaper to stock 3 spares in 3 different modules.  That is, if the OP's premise holds, that mass costs are 10x lower than today.

Same approach as Starlink.  I suspect there per-satellite reliability for the first ~500 satellites off the mfg line isn't quite up to that of a GEO communications satellite, but it's also several orders of magnitude cheaper, AND, by the time they've made and deployed 500 satellites they've learned so much more than a low volume GEO communications satellite their reliability is probably higher for the next few thousand off the mfg line.

Never mind that 500 satellites will always be more reliable than one precious satellite however lovingly made.

[Vultur]

And I think in general the cost increases for space may be because of potential failure modes. So for a space station, what happens if air is lost in a module, but then the module is fixed and reoccupied? If the systems in that module are not hardened to survive in a vacuum, like displays, then the cost of that failure could be very high. So spending more on systems that can survive a vacuum would be more expensive, but maybe better insurance.

If medium volume is 10x less cost than low volume, as another poster demonstrated, then no, it doesn't make sense to "spend more on systems that can survive a vacuum"

It's cheaper to stock 3 spares in 3 different modules.  That is, if the OP's premise holds, that mass costs are 10x lower than today.

Actually, I was talking about launch prices way lower than 10x current ones ... 100x or better. Like $20/kg or something.

Never say never. Earth is a humid and highly oxidizing environment with a freeze/thaw cycle and weather. The “never” argument doesn’t pass muster.

If this debate is about the relatively benign space environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), then maybe we could get close to the same cost. But overall space is a harsh environment, and there is no getting around that.

Isn't LEO worse than high orbit in some ways since you have more space debris, rapid day/night thermal cycling, and maybe atomic oxygen?

In sufficiently high orbit you can have permanent sunlight (constant thermal environment), and you're out of the denser orbital debris.

SpaceX, as one example, has shown that within their Dragon spacecraft, which is thermally controlled internally, that they can deal with radiation issues by increasing the number of computers, so that if one goes offline (or temporarily fails) because of radiation issues, that the others can take over temporarily. So while the individual cost of the computer is the same as a non-space related use case, the cost is higher overall because of the added redundancy.

Sure, but (say) 3x of the same hardware is only 3x cost, which is pretty mild compared to existing space costs.

[Coastal Ron]

And I think in general the cost increases for space may be because of potential failure modes. So for a space station, what happens if air is lost in a module, but then the module is fixed and reoccupied? If the systems in that module are not hardened to survive in a vacuum, like displays, then the cost of that failure could be very high. So spending more on systems that can survive a vacuum would be more expensive, but maybe better insurance.

If medium volume is 10x less cost than low volume, as another poster demonstrated, then no, it doesn't make sense to "spend more on systems that can survive a vacuum"

It's cheaper to stock 3 spares in 3 different modules.  That is, if the OP's premise holds, that mass costs are 10x lower than today.

This gets back to an earlier question I posted - are we talking about space hardware that is only in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), or also hardware that is being deployed Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO)?

Because the further you get from your source of supply and support, the more important it is to have hardware that is fault tolerant beyond consumer level here on Earth.

And if you are on a spaceship, or even a space station far from Earth, you may not have the ability to have a large spare parts inventory.

Lots of ways to debate this in the abstract, so define the who, what, where so we can look at what the options really are.

Same approach as Starlink.  I suspect there per-satellite reliability for the first ~500 satellites off the mfg line isn't quite up to that of a GEO communications satellite...

They aren't, and why don't you know this? It is public knowledge that a Starlink satellite is designed for a much shorter operational lifespan than a GEO satellite.

...but it's also several orders of magnitude cheaper...

Sure, because they have a shorter lifespan, and need less power. All this is known, and it is like comparing an apple to an orange... 

...AND, by the time they've made and deployed 500 satellites they've learned so much more than a low volume GEO communications satellite their reliability is probably higher for the next few thousand off the mfg line.

Again, apples and oranges, but in a way you are making one of my arguments, that for custom GEO satellites they will never be as cheap as LEO satellites like Starlink, because the requirements are different. Plus, another point I made a while back, is that the further you get from Earth, the less likely you can use common components made for use on Earth.

[Coastal Ron]

Once space hardware is getting produced autonomously in space...

Autonomous production in space is a wonderful topic - wake me when we figure out how to produce complex things autonomously here on Earth... 

...the real cost will be limited only to the cost to provide the energy of the production.

Sure. Well, that and the material cost. And the cost of building the factory, and the cost of maintaining the factory (are you thinking it can self-repair autonomously too?), etc.

In other words, no, the cost of energy will likely be a very small percentage of the overall cost.

A colony on Mars will be very expensive to establish and maintain, possibly for the first 10-20 years, but then the automation should enable a self-sufficiency...

How are you assuming they will make lubricants on Mars? Where will they get the feedstock? Or seals, where will the feedstock for seals come from?

As someone that has had to keep a factory supplied and working, I have been public about stating that we are likely hundreds of years from making Mars self-sufficient - if it is possible at all.

[redneck]

Once space hardware is getting produced autonomously in space...

Autonomous production in space is a wonderful topic - wake me when we figure out how to produce complex things autonomously here on Earth... 

...the real cost will be limited only to the cost to provide the energy of the production.

Sure. Well, that and the material cost. And the cost of building the factory, and the cost of maintaining the factory (are you thinking it can self-repair autonomously too?), etc.

In other words, no, the cost of energy will likely be a very small percentage of the overall cost.

A colony on Mars will be very expensive to establish and maintain, possibly for the first 10-20 years, but then the automation should enable a self-sufficiency...

How are you assuming they will make lubricants on Mars? Where will they get the feedstock? Or seals, where will the feedstock for seals come from?

As someone that has had to keep a factory supplied and working, I have been public about stating that we are likely hundreds of years from making Mars self-sufficient - if it is possible at all.

One of the other costs is the forgone opportunity to make something different. An autonomous factory making widgets sounds great, unless you really need gadgets and gizmos. That which is seen and that which is not seen.   

[Vultur]

And I think in general the cost increases for space may be because of potential failure modes. So for a space station, what happens if air is lost in a module, but then the module is fixed and reoccupied? If the systems in that module are not hardened to survive in a vacuum, like displays, then the cost of that failure could be very high. So spending more on systems that can survive a vacuum would be more expensive, but maybe better insurance.

If medium volume is 10x less cost than low volume, as another poster demonstrated, then no, it doesn't make sense to "spend more on systems that can survive a vacuum"

It's cheaper to stock 3 spares in 3 different modules.  That is, if the OP's premise holds, that mass costs are 10x lower than today.

This gets back to an earlier question I posted - are we talking about space hardware that is only in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), or also hardware that is being deployed Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO)?

Both, but these make sense as separate questions.

Because the further you get from your source of supply and support, the more important it is to have hardware that is fault tolerant beyond consumer level here on Earth.

And if you are on a spaceship, or even a space station far from Earth, you may not have the ability to have a large spare parts inventory.

To a degree, but I'd argue that with the really low launch costs this thread assumes, that ability becomes way more likely/possible.

In that environment, I don't think the most important divide is necessarily LEO vs beyond. It might be broader Earth orbit/cislunar space (including the Moon and lunar orbits, Earth-Moon L points, NRHO, etc. as well as LEO, GEO, etc ) where you can do reasonably timed deliveries; vs Mars, asteroids, etc where you may have to wait months to potentially years for a launch window.

Well, it possibly breaks down to three regimes - LEO; higher Earth orbits/cislunar space/Moon/L-points; more distant destinations.

It is public knowledge that a Starlink satellite is designed for a much shorter operational lifespan than a GEO satellite

In low LEO orbits, orbital lifetimes aren't very long, so there's not much reason to design for long ones.

But really cheap launch costs may change the picture elsewhere too, because...

...but it's also several orders of magnitude cheaper...

Sure, because they have a shorter lifespan, and need less power. All this is known, and it is like comparing an apple to an orange... 

Sure, but lifespan isn't that much shorter. If you can get a satellite that lasts 5 years manufactured 20x cheaper than a satellite that lasts 25 years, that's 1/4 the manufacturing cost per satellite life year.

(Starlinks are a lot more than 20x cheaper than GEO comsats, but they're also smaller.)

This sort of thing would probably be more predominant in an environment where launch costs were something like $20/kg.

Once space hardware is getting produced autonomously in space...

Autonomous production in space is a wonderful topic - wake me when we figure out how to produce complex things autonomously here on Earth... 

...the real cost will be limited only to the cost to provide the energy of the production.

Sure. Well, that and the material cost. And the cost of building the factory, and the cost of maintaining the factory (are you thinking it can self-repair autonomously too?), etc.

In other words, no, the cost of energy will likely be a very small percentage of the overall cost.

A colony on Mars will be very expensive to establish and maintain, possibly for the first 10-20 years, but then the automation should enable a self-sufficiency...

How are you assuming they will make lubricants on Mars? Where will they get the feedstock? Or seals, where will the feedstock for seals come from?

As someone that has had to keep a factory supplied and working, I have been public about stating that we are likely hundreds of years from making Mars self-sufficient - if it is possible at all.

I think my view is somewhere in between.

Full 100% autonomy is crazy hard but also probably unnecessary.

Materials cost basically is just part of energy cost if you're working from locally mined materials - it comes down to the energy to mine the materials. Hardware costs OTOH ... I don't really believe in self-replicating "hard technology" (as opposed to much closer to living systems), even way in the future.

Self-sufficiency is a really really hard problem, but IMO probably not as impossible a problem as direct extrapolation of how modern Earth industry works (which is optimized for cost under very different constraints) would suggest.

I don't think lubricants, seals, etc will be anywhere near the hard part of the problem though. They'd have things like oils, artificial rubber, etc. - the Martian "petrochemical industry" will probably be a very important early setup. It just won't use fossil petrochemicals - probably something like atmospheric CO2 and mined ice H2O to syngas CO + H2 to organics of all sorts ... with the extra oxygen becoming breathing air or return propellant.

This is all stuff that could be done pretty easily on Earth, and has been done, using petroleum as a source is just cheaper.

I don't think anything chemical made of common elements will be the hard part of the problem, it'll be manufacturing of stuff like specific electronics that use rare elements, semiconductor fabs, etc.