5 ms·
Are the energy savings really enough to justify sending stuff up and bringing it back down?
by jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
Are the energy savings really enough to justify sending stuff up and bringing it back down?
- nickparker 7y agoIt's not about energy, it's about processes that literally don't work on Earth. See Made in Space fiber[0] for an early example - they're producing best-in-class optical fibers which can't be made on Earth because convection introduces crystalline impurities. Their value per kg is attractive enough to make this a profitable business with today's launch costs. As launch costs drop and people explore this space we're going to discover a _lot_ of such problems. Solutions / mixtures essentially don't separate in micro-g so you can grow much better crystals, smelt very high entropy alloys, do all sorts of awesome tissue engineering, etc. The vibration isolation thing is also a huge force multiplier for all this. Ultra-precision manufacturing is a game of complete and total process control. Right now we spend absurd sums on isolation systems to block vibrations from the truck driving by half a mile away. In orbit you just make sure anything with moving parts is on a separate free body from your isolated component and they fly in formation. The LISA mission is doing this to position ultra-perfect reference objects and detect gravitational waves with baselines measured in thousands of kilometers. [0]: https://madeinspace.us/capabilities-and-technology/fiber-optics/ https://madeinspace.us/capabilities-and-technology/fiber-opt...
- jacobwilliamroy 7y agoI like this stuff. Materials engineering is cool.