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In the 'world of the future' type books I read as a young lad of the 80's there was much said about factories in orbit... Admittedly in hindsight these books ap

In the 'world of the future' type books I read as a young lad of the 80's there was much said about factories in orbit... Admittedly in hindsight these books appear quite far-fetched about the pace of humanity's expansion into space (titles by Usborne and Neil Ardley if you're playing along at home). Has anything been learnt from ISS about zero-G manufacturing that might make it a suitable platform for such by a private group? Isn't the ISS supposed to be a staying waypoint for a mission to Mars?

martindevans 10y ago
I don't think that's possible. The ISS is in an inclined orbit (iirc for easy access from certain launch sites that orbit passes over) and afaik is useless as a waypoint to anywhere (because an orbital plane change is very expensive).
gene-h 10y ago
The big attraction of the ISS is laboratory where gravity can 'removed,' which can be useful for understanding processes on Earth. This is valuable to some companies. Right now a couple companies are currently running experiments on the ISS.[0] Proctor and Gamble wants to better understand why colloids(shampoo, liquid detergents, medicine) separate, because that affects the shelf life of their products. If they can turn off gravity, they can figure out what other processes cause colloids to separate besides just gravity. As far as manufacturing goes, there are not many products that are worth making in space right now. You need a product that is more valuable per unit mass than the cost per unit mass to launch something to LEO. Now the interesting thing is that there have been commercial products manufactured in space. Latex microspheres were produced on the space shuttle and sold as calibration sources for microscopes.[1] Because microscope calibration needs literally microscopic amounts of these microsphere, per unit mass the product was very valuable. [0] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/commercial_research http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/comm... [1]http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html [1]http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html
- dogma1138 10y ago
  There are a few startup companies that are building solution for zero g research as we speak. SpacePharma is designing an end-to-end biological and chemical lab that can be launched on cubesats to perform experiments in zero g at the fraction of the cost and they aren't the only ones. http://www.geektime.com/2016/01/06/beyond-spacex-10-space-companies-to-watch-in-2016-2017/ http://www.geektime.com/2016/01/06/beyond-spacex-10-space-co...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

martindevans 10y ago

I don't think that's possible. The ISS is in an inclined orbit (iirc for easy access from certain launch sites that orbit passes over) and afaik is useless as a waypoint to anywhere (because an orbital plane change is very expensive).

gene-h 10y ago

The big attraction of the ISS is laboratory where gravity can 'removed,' which can be useful for understanding processes on Earth. This is valuable to some companies. Right now a couple companies are currently running experiments on the ISS.[0] Proctor and Gamble wants to better understand why colloids(shampoo, liquid detergents, medicine) separate, because that affects the shelf life of their products. If they can turn off gravity, they can figure out what other processes cause colloids to separate besides just gravity. As far as manufacturing goes, there are not many products that are worth making in space right now. You need a product that is more valuable per unit mass than the cost per unit mass to launch something to LEO. Now the interesting thing is that there have been commercial products manufactured in space. Latex microspheres were produced on the space shuttle and sold as calibration sources for microscopes.[1] Because microscope calibration needs literally microscopic amounts of these microsphere, per unit mass the product was very valuable. [0] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/commercial_research http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/comm... [1]http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html [1]http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/space/manuf.html

dogma1138 10y ago
There are a few startup companies that are building solution for zero g research as we speak. SpacePharma is designing an end-to-end biological and chemical lab that can be launched on cubesats to perform experiments in zero g at the fraction of the cost and they aren't the only ones. http://www.geektime.com/2016/01/06/beyond-spacex-10-space-companies-to-watch-in-2016-2017/ http://www.geektime.com/2016/01/06/beyond-spacex-10-space-co...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]