I’m just confused about what products can be manufactured completely autonomously, in a 0G environment, and are profitable enough to make space-based manufacture economical.
Unobtanium…
Making things that can only be made in 0G, then bringing them back to Earth to sell.
I suspect the manned ISS isn’t too keen to add a continuously operating 1000C furnace component to their collection of modules.
Anything, because it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than launching finished products from Earth.
Solar energy for computation perhaps, but cooling would be too expensive.
In an existing ecosystem of space mining and processing of all required elements, with no need to exit gravity wells, could be microchips. I don’t think we are closer to that than Vinland settlers were to thirteen colonies.
Well, comrades, you know what this means:
in space there are no labor laws.
True but why bother keeping a pesky human alive when you can just automate everything and keep all the money for yourself?
Never trust the endeavors of the bourgeoisie.
Seems they’re wanting to put the means of production somewhere where regulations and oversight are simply too impractical to do.
The thing is if space-based manufacturing became the norm then it would cease to be impractical to implement regulations and oversight. The reason it’s difficult to do now is because getting to spaces difficult, but for space-based manufacturing to be feasible that problem already has to be solved.
“The work that we’re doing now is allowing us to create semiconductors up to 4,000 times purer in space than we can currently make here today,” says Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge.
Interesting. Having something that can only be manufactured in space would be a real motivation to getting off our asses and back up there.
Hell yeah! Actual useful industrial endeavors are the way we finally get humans off the planet, this is the way to the future. Once there’s a reason for industry in space, there’s a reason for support industries, construction, material supply, fuel supply, maintenance, etc. With those support services comes reasons for people to start to actually live in space, where they work. And from there, we can start to spread our legs and really “move in” to solar system, and the story of the human race truly begins.
Can’t wait for variable mortgage rates, but on mars.
I’m mostly joking, I think it’s great if we can become space farers, just can’t help but think about what we did the last time we were out colonizing…
Well at least there aren’t any natives we’d be oppressing this time.
Otoh according to Iain Banks’s speculation, space colonisation might be the thing that finally lets humanity toss off the chains of capitalism:
The thought processes of a tribe, a clan, a country or a nation-state are essentially two-dimensional, and the nature of their power depends on the same flatness. Territory is all-important; resources, living-space, lines of communication; all are determined by the nature of the plane (that the plane is in fact a sphere is irrelevant here); that surface, and the fact the species concerned are bound to it during their evolution, determines the mind-set of a ground-living species. The mind-set of an aquatic or avian species is, of course, rather different.
Essentially, the contention is that our currently dominant power systems cannot long survive in space; beyond a certain technological level a degree of anarchy is arguably inevitable and anyway preferable.
To survive in space, ships/habitats must be self-sufficient, or very nearly so; the hold of the state (or the corporation) over them therefore becomes tenuous if the desires of the inhabitants conflict significantly with the requirements of the controlling body. On a planet, enclaves can be surrounded, besieged, attacked; the superior forces of a state or corporation - hereafter referred to as hegemonies - will tend to prevail. In space, a break-away movement will be far more difficult to control, especially if significant parts of it are based on ships or mobile habitats. The hostile nature of the vacuum and the technological complexity of life support mechanisms will make such systems vulnerable to outright attack, but that, of course, would risk the total destruction of the ship/habitat, so denying its future economic contribution to whatever entity was attempting to control it.
Outright destruction of rebellious ships or habitats - pour encouragez les autres - of course remains an option for the controlling power, but all the usual rules of uprising realpolitik still apply, especially that concerning the peculiar dialectic of dissent which - simply stated - dictates that in all but the most dedicatedly repressive hegemonies, if in a sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seems often to baffle the military and political mind. Rebellion, then (once space-going and space-living become commonplace), becomes easier than it might be on the surface of a planet.
Even so, this is certainly the most vulnerable point in the time-line of the Culture’s existence, the point at which it is easiest to argue for things turning out quite differently, as the extent and sophistication of the hegemony’s control mechanisms - and its ability and will to repress - battles against the ingenuity, skill, solidarity and bravery of the rebellious ships and habitats, and indeed the assumption here is that this point has been reached before and the hegemony has won… but it is also assumed that - for the reasons given above - that point is bound to come round again, and while the forces of repression need to win every time, the progressive elements need only triumph once.
Concomitant with this is the argument that the nature of life in space - that vulnerability, as mentioned above - would mean that while ships and habitats might more easily become independent from each other and from their legally progenitative hegemonies, their crew - or inhabitants - would always be aware of their reliance on each other, and on the technology which allowed them to live in space. The theory here is that the property and social relations of long-term space-dwelling (especially over generations) would be of a fundamentally different type compared to the norm on a planet; the mutuality of dependence involved in an environment which is inherently hostile would necessitate an internal social coherence which would contrast with the external casualness typifying the relations between such ships/habitats. Succinctly; socialism within, anarchy without. This broad result is - in the long run - independent of the initial social and economic conditions which give rise to it.
And how much space junk will end up there? Cleaning up afterwards costs more money and long term thinking isn’t something shareholders care about over more profit today.
The tech is interesting, hopefully governments across the entire planet regulate it well enough. Although at the same time, its not like we really need to care either. In our lifetime its not like any of us are likely to be able to afford to go to space anyway, but it would probably be a good idea not to ruin it if we have a choice.
It shouldn’t be too hard to engineer orbit decay as a feature to avoid space junk.
Consider that space junk is so sparce it’s not really much if a consideration for launches. It’s like the rings of Saturn: the likelihood of a collision is so remote that they didn’t even consider it when we had a satellite move through it.
It’s like the rings of Saturn: the likelihood of a collision is so remote that they didn’t even consider it when we had a satellite move through it.
I didn’t realize that, what mission is this your talking about? Cassini?
Yes, Cassini
Pretty sure its the asteroid belt, not planetary rings, that you don’t really need to think about when passing through.
And yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard and yet look at all the junk already up there. Hopefully they can just be required to keep to very low orbits that decay rapidly.
It’s my understanding that the idea of a dense asteroid belt (the kind Han Solo might try to hide in) is basically pure fiction, they don’t exist. However… that is essentially exactly what some parts of a planetary ring system may look like up close. So perhaps Han could hide in a planetary ring.
The satellite Cassini passed through a less dense section of Saturns rings and was met only by dust particles, despite the rings being populated by objects between 10 meters and the size of mountains.
Why? Why do we need to pollute the earth even more so that the capitalists can gain more capital outside of it?
We have crises here that are only exacerbated by this dumb need to send people to space.
Space used to be inspiring when it was the playground of scientists and engineers. What made it all vomit was the privatization of astronautics (and the associated place in our imaginations) to the worst possible assholes and their cult of personality.
Yup, I’m fine with it being done by a public org in the pursuit of science and furtherment of humanity.
Bingo.
I’m fine with national space programs and whatnot.
I’m not fine with private sector in space.
I’m fine with national space programs and whatnot.
Are you aware of just how much of NASA’s budget was being drained for bullshit ‘cost+’ contracts with Boeing et al?
Elon sucks, but spacex has progressed space tech significantly, at a much lower cost than before.
National space programs are great, but the US turned them into a kickbacks program.
Indeed, as a state owned company, Boeing is really inefficient
SpaceX is a garbage company that only proves my point. It’s a leech of taxpayers’ money for private gains.
NASA has achieved much more, much more time ago. If it wasn’t for the brain-drain caused by SpaceX, and the cashflow that was directed away from it, it could’ve been much more useful.
Now all we get is the dickhead and his followers exploding rockets “to Mars” (lmao) for shits and giggles.
I totally understand where you’re coming from and I mirror the sentiment, 100%. I’m tired billionaires steering the country, and I’m especially tired of musk, I hope I never have to hear his name in the news ever again.
That said, I think your take is misguided. For all that I hate musk, spaceX has achieved some truly astonishing things. And not only have they achieved their goals, but they’ve done it at an unprecedented rate and at a shockingly low cost. SpaceX is developing technology at a similar rate to NASA way back at the beginning, during the Gemini and Apollo programs, except back then NASA was getting 4% of the federal budget. SpaceX has not had anything close to that level of funding. In fact, though they have most definitely taken government contacts, for the most part, they’ve been able to foot the bill themselves (and with investors) for the majority of their development costs. When you compare costs and outcomes directly - what spaceX delivered vs what it cost us against any other launch provider, the difference is astonishing.
But that’s all business stuff. What spaceX has done that impresses me is the technical stuff. They developed a relatively inexpensive rocket engine with a 184/1 thrust to weight ratio. That’s the best thrust to weight ever achieved by an orbital class engine, like by a lot. Before that, I believe the record was held by the F-1 engine that powered the Saturn-V and took us to the moon, it boasted a 94/1 ratio.
For their next major rocket engine spaceX developed the raptor, a full flow staged combustion engine, running on methane. Explaining why “full flow staged combustion” is impressive is probably outside the scope of this comment, but please believe me, this is a huge technical achievement and it provides some very real benefits. And running on methane is a good choice for reusability, it burns cleaner, and there’s potential for producing it off earth.
And of course most importantly they changed the industry by landing rockets. That’s not a small feat, some of their competitors called them foolish for wasting time even trying, the industry was very much not moving in the direction of reusability. Now that SpaceX has proven the viability and in fact the huge advantage of reusable rockets, there are many rockets being designed for this, from Rocket Lab, Arianespace, Stoke Space, Blue Origin, Relativity Space, eXpace (a hilariously named Chinese company), and probably many more; this is now the way the industry is going, that’s a big deal.
Looks like outsourcing good management of public resources to “greed” to fix inefficiencies. Why is some greedy fuck with delusions of grandeur needed here?
PS: ok, ok, you need an outsider asshole who is unafraid to go against installed parasites in the system to streamline processes…so…you end up with one giant parasite that interferes with elections and manipulates markets…:/
Looks like outsourcing good management of public resources to “greed” to fix inefficiencies.
Pretty much. The only upside is we’re getting more return on less dollar from this particular instance of outsourcing. I’m well aware that’s not always the case.
Why is some greedy fuck with delusions of grandeur needed here?
It’s not, and it would be nice if the human race ever figures out a system for fair and equitable allocation of resources. But we haven’t yet, so here we are stuck between corrupt politicians and greedy billionaires.
But there was a time when the system worked during the cold war, because it was tied to “national security” and the military. I just find it ironic that in a world that is so dependent on spatial products that interest seems to be taken so lightly when compared with the past.
We have crises here that are only exacerbated by this dumb need to send people to space.
The human race is capable of doing more than one thing at a time. That we aren’t working on solving our many crises has nothing to do with whether or not we’re in space. You’re tying together two issues that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
That we aren’t working on solving our many crises has nothing to do with whether or not we’re in space. You’re tying together two issues that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Climate change and space travel are literally opposing goals. If we send people to space, we add more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. If we stop polluting the atmosphere with dead dino farts we cant get people into space.
The end goal of manufacturing stuff in space is so we don’t have to waste resources to get stuff to orbit. If we can extract resources from asteroids, then we can just build up there without needing countless rocket launches and further pollution of our environment. The sooner we can become self-sustaining in space, the better.
“Absolutely nothing to do with each other”
Do you think rockets burn unicorn farts and exhaust pixie dust?
We have enough morons sending their penis extensions to space for shits and giggles, we do not want to “start manufacturing in space” so capitalists can fuck the climate up even more for the rest of us.
Do you think rockets burn unicorn farts and exhaust pixie dust?
By that logic, pretty much any activity we do exacerbates the crisis. The climate is not being fucked because we’re launching rockets, save your passion for those issues where it actually matters.
we do not want to “start manufacturing in space”
Speak for yourself.
By that logic, pretty much any activity we do exacerbates the crisis
Almost the right conclusion. Some activity exacerbates more than other. Sending rockets to space is the “more” one.
The climate is not being fucked because we’re launching rockets
Exactly! Not yet. Let’s keep it that way.
I understand we’re all fans of science-fiction here, and especially gullible when billionaires promise us “colonies in Mars next year”, but try to keep it grounded since manufacturing isn’t even sustainable yet here on earth.
We’re on path to The Expanse timeline:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6722NAzNXck (spoiler, obviously)
spoiler
Basically a station was striking and demanding better worker rights, the UN Earth Government sent a spaceship, tried to jam their surrender call, then blew up the entire station for “being hostile and refusing to surrender”. They had children on the station.
i guess its time to start a space labor union
Call it Beltalowda
They’ll staff the space factories with felony convicts, kidnapped non-citizens, and orphans who don’t have a place to stay. In addition to your proposed union I would like to see a “made with space-prison labor” disclaimer on these productsm
We can finally make endo steel chasis!
Pretty interesting. How come they can get 1000c in space but not on earth? Doesnt the vacuum of space make it hard to retain heat?
The article doesn’t state they can’t reach that temperature down on earth, and many processes do. It’s really not the jist of the article. Space manufacturing is interesting for the micro-gravity and better vacuum/less contamination. .
Vacuum is a perfect thermal insulator. The only real losses are radiative.
Edit: From Stefan-Boltzmann: up to (not sure about emissivities, but could be down to 10% of this) 100kW for a black body of 1m diameter at 1000C.
I’m completely unaware of the science around it all but none the less its exciting stuff, i hope to read more about it as things progress.
There are three modes of heat transfer; conduction, convection, and radiation.
Conduction happens when two bodies at different temperatures come into contact with each other. The total heat transfer depends primarily on the difference in temperature, contact surface area and time spent in contact.
Convection takes place when a fluid (I.e. a gas such as air or a liquid such as water) comes into contact with another body. Here, again, heat transfer depends on difference in temperature, contact (“wetted”) surface area and time in contact which is primarily dictated by how fast the fluid is moving over the body.
On Earth we generally leverage these two modes. An example of mixing the two modes is a CPU heatsink and fan setup. The heatsink conducts heat away from the CPU and is (usually) distributed throughout several extended surfaces I.e. fins. The fins increase the surface area in contact with air, enhancing the rate of heat transfer.
Now, we can’t really take advantage of those in space. The lack of an independent physical medium means the heat ultimately has no where to go; this is known as a “closed system”. So if we generate or store enough heat in a body subject to the void of space without promoting radiative heat transfer, that heat will more or less stay put.
Radiative heat transfer is fucked up. Everything above absolute zero radiates heat. You mostly can’t see this except for one glaringly obvious example; the Sun. Sol is so fucking hot that it heats the Earth through the vacuum of space purely via anger aka photons. And thanks to the miracle of science, you radiate anger right back at it.
Explaining radiative heat transfer further is outside the scope of this reply and will be left as an exercise to the reader.
I hope I explained this well enough for you or other readers to impart a ‘basic’ idea of a complex engineering discipline that I adore. I’m absolutely willing to answer any questions.
Are you sure it’s engineering you adore. Left as an exercise for the reader? That’s physicist speak.
Hah! My adoration of partial differential equations is far purer than even physicists could hope to achieve.
Heat is so easily retained in space that when the Shuttle launched they only had 4 hours to open the cargo doors to expose the radiators or the cabin and electronics would overheat and they would have to scrub the mission. They never had to scrub for that reason though.
Finally, like SciFi series ‘Star Trek’ & Etc.
Only problem is all the garbage already in space, damage! I assume better for the environment, even with environmental cost putting all that into space. Robots not our species working there.
Ew… Aliens don’t need more human garbage. Have you seen how much space junk we have?.. We already look like the universe’s junk yard.
The only ones that junk is a danger to is ourselves. Kessler syndrome is no joke.
Kessler syndrome is no joke.
Except it kind of is.
It can’t really happen at very low earth orbit, where the majority of satellites are, as any unpowered space junk would deorbit relatively quickly. And it can’t really happen at geostationary orbit, where most of the rest of them are, because when you go out that far there’s just so much space between every single object… The only way you run into something out there is on purpose and after a lot of calculations.
So there’s medium orbits and higher LEO those are the only areas we need to be really careful with.
