5 ms·

I'm having difficulty picturing anything we could manufacture on Mars that would be cheaper vs terrestrial manufacturing.

jstandard 10y ago
Manufacturing and processing materials to sustain martian colonies, exploration, or satellites. The cost will be high initially, but if we're ever to have any permanent foothold, local manufacturing will be needed.
- oblib 10y ago
  That is science and tech for knowledge's sake, not a plan to make a profit. Certainly there are some things that will benefit from being manufactured in a low or zero gravity environment but so far nothing that will turn a profit off of setup costs that I'm aware off. It's not that I don't admire the ambition. I do. But I really don't think that unfettered commercialization of even low missiles into space is a good idea. From what I've read we do not know the potential effects this could have on the Ozone and upper atmosphere. We seem to be ignoring the precautionary principal with these projects.
  - Judgmentality 10y ago
    > That is science and tech for knowledge's sake, not a plan to make a profit. To be fair, there wasn't much business incentive (although certainly a lot of political incentive) to go to the moon in the first place. But it ultimately led to numerous new technologies and markets, most notably GPS. I'm not saying it's necessarily a good investment, but the biggest wins are always the biggest surprises (Google, Amazon, AirBnB, Apple were all initially hated by investors).
  - jstandard 10y ago
    By "local" manufacturing I was referring to manufacturing plants on Mars itself to support other initiatives on Mars, in response to a comment comparing manufacturing on Mars to on earth. Raw materials transport seems the major constraining factor. Assuming some types of raw materials will be available on Mars, there's a high chance local Mars manufacturing of some basic goods will be more cost effective than manufacturing on Earth and transporting it.
Hermel 10y ago
The manufacturing itself won't be cheaper. But you can save transport costs. It costs about 22000 USD to send 1 kg into space. SpaceX might improve this to 1000 USD per kg, but that's still quite expensive.
deleted 10y ago
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adrianN 10y ago
Maybe not on Mars, but in low gravity environments. Metallurgy in low-gravity is interesting.
adventured 10y ago
One the arguments Bezos floats for space-based manufacturing is to offplanet the negative environmental consequences of industry. His premise is, the earth is for habitation, space is for industry. Certainly seems likely to be very expensive, but he also thinks he can put down a foundation of space infrastructure upon which the next generations can build upon (with the implication being to bring costs down dramatically to enable a boom in all things space). He uses the Internet as a comparison, in that he was able to do what he did, because previous generations put down a technology foundation that made Amazon possible (he didn't have to build all of that).
hinkley 10y ago
There's abundant calcium, silicon, aluminum, titanium and oxygen on the moon. You bring in hydrogen and export tritium and a lot of the rest could be used to expand settlements and build up space infrastructure.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Not necessarily on Mars. Earth orbit would be a good start, so would be Luna if you absolutely need to have a solid rock bed under you. It definitely won't be cheaper initially, especially if you want that manufacturing to serve the needs of people down on Earth; but it will make more space development cheaper (you don't have to move mass upwell, and as we know, Low Earth Orbit is halfway to anywhere in the Solar System). So space industry will most likely initially work on developing itself and reducing its own costs.

jstandard 10y ago

Manufacturing and processing materials to sustain martian colonies, exploration, or satellites. The cost will be high initially, but if we're ever to have any permanent foothold, local manufacturing will be needed.

oblib 10y ago
That is science and tech for knowledge's sake, not a plan to make a profit. Certainly there are some things that will benefit from being manufactured in a low or zero gravity environment but so far nothing that will turn a profit off of setup costs that I'm aware off. It's not that I don't admire the ambition. I do. But I really don't think that unfettered commercialization of even low missiles into space is a good idea. From what I've read we do not know the potential effects this could have on the Ozone and upper atmosphere. We seem to be ignoring the precautionary principal with these projects.
- Judgmentality 10y ago
  > That is science and tech for knowledge's sake, not a plan to make a profit. To be fair, there wasn't much business incentive (although certainly a lot of political incentive) to go to the moon in the first place. But it ultimately led to numerous new technologies and markets, most notably GPS. I'm not saying it's necessarily a good investment, but the biggest wins are always the biggest surprises (Google, Amazon, AirBnB, Apple were all initially hated by investors).
- jstandard 10y ago
  By "local" manufacturing I was referring to manufacturing plants on Mars itself to support other initiatives on Mars, in response to a comment comparing manufacturing on Mars to on earth. Raw materials transport seems the major constraining factor. Assuming some types of raw materials will be available on Mars, there's a high chance local Mars manufacturing of some basic goods will be more cost effective than manufacturing on Earth and transporting it.

Hermel 10y ago

The manufacturing itself won't be cheaper. But you can save transport costs. It costs about 22000 USD to send 1 kg into space. SpaceX might improve this to 1000 USD per kg, but that's still quite expensive.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

adrianN 10y ago

Maybe not on Mars, but in low gravity environments. Metallurgy in low-gravity is interesting.

adventured 10y ago

One the arguments Bezos floats for space-based manufacturing is to offplanet the negative environmental consequences of industry. His premise is, the earth is for habitation, space is for industry. Certainly seems likely to be very expensive, but he also thinks he can put down a foundation of space infrastructure upon which the next generations can build upon (with the implication being to bring costs down dramatically to enable a boom in all things space). He uses the Internet as a comparison, in that he was able to do what he did, because previous generations put down a technology foundation that made Amazon possible (he didn't have to build all of that).

hinkley 10y ago

There's abundant calcium, silicon, aluminum, titanium and oxygen on the moon. You bring in hydrogen and export tritium and a lot of the rest could be used to expand settlements and build up space infrastructure.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Not necessarily on Mars. Earth orbit would be a good start, so would be Luna if you absolutely need to have a solid rock bed under you. It definitely won't be cheaper initially, especially if you want that manufacturing to serve the needs of people down on Earth; but it will make more space development cheaper (you don't have to move mass upwell, and as we know, Low Earth Orbit is halfway to anywhere in the Solar System). So space industry will most likely initially work on developing itself and reducing its own costs.