It'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-cla

It'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...