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I was thinking the other day that it seems launching stuff is mostly solved these days but there seems to be a real lack of companies developing "infrastructure

by WJW 5y ago

I was thinking the other day that it seems launching stuff is mostly solved these days but there seems to be a real lack of companies developing "infrastructure" for people once they're up. The only one I know of is Bigelow aerospace, who are working on inflatable space stations that (should) cost a few orders of magnitude less than the current batch of stations. There is also the zero-G ultrapure glass fiber company and the space mining initiative, but they mostly seem to be doing work in space so that they can get the final product back to Earth. Does anyone know of serious companies working on in-orbit manufacturing machines or agricultural equipment? Just a proper CNC lathe or milling machine seems like it would be a giant first step for orbital construction. Perhaps combined with an orbital smelter for making metals out of asteroids.

lmm 5y ago
What would such a company be doing right now? I'm sure that we'll eventually want such equipment in orbit, but I don't think working on it now helps us get there - right now a lathe or milling machine in space doesn't make any sense as launching the raw materials would be more expensive than launching the finished part. Maybe for a Mars colony where you want the ability to make replacement parts in situ, or maybe if we were already at the point of having a captured asteroid to work with.
- WJW 5y ago
  Fair point, though I'll point out that we can also argue there's no point in capturing asteroids until there is machinery available to work with them. I was also just thinking about "boring things" like coffee machines, laundry machines and space beds for the space station hotels that the Bigelow people are designing. Surely you'd want to design those well up front so you can iterate the design a few times before the first guests arrive?
  - icegreentea2 5y ago
    The selling pickaxes to gold miners formula only works when people are pretty sure there is gold. Funding development of orbital smelters would be an incredibly risky proposition given that pay-off would be contingent on someone else figuring out asteroid mining or something. And as for "boring things". Same type of deal. It's risky throwing money at a problem that only has a payoff if someone else succeeds their own high risk activity. Like Bigelow currently has no staff, and has totally missed all of its planned milestones. Especially for the boring stuff, you're also going to be cramped up against someone selling solutions that just apes whatever the ISS does. Does only have instant coffee, and not having real laundry, and having to sleep strapped into a sleeping bag kind of suck? Ya. But YOU'RE IN SPACE (and that's roughly just the same thing as camping). The novelty alone should be enough to tide you through your entire first generation of customers.
  - lmm 5y ago
    If you can capture an asteroid full of palladium or whatever then that's worthwhile even if all you do is take chunks of raw asteroid down to Earth for processing. But then once that's in place then it becomes worth doing some basic refining in orbit so that you're not shipping a bunch of dirt down at thousands of dollars per kilogram, and eventually it becomes worth moving more and more of the manufacturing chain up into orbit for the same reason. That's the most plausible way I can see to bootstrap things.
    - dTal 5y ago
      Surely shipping stuff down is basically free.
      - lmm 5y ago
        Putting stuff on a ballistic reentry is free, but will burn up a certain amount of your material and is very hard to do safely. Maybe China could bring one down in their big desert and not worry too much about whether it hits anyone who lives there, but many nations would balk at that, and it complicates the retrieval. Otherwise the atmosphere helps you somewhat, but you've still got to fit a heatshield and some way to decelerate. The mass limit for parachutes is pretty low, so we're probably talking about a lifting body and some proper engines - maybe air-breathing engines, which are going to be significantly cheaper (especially fuel-wise) than rocket engines but by no means free. Maybe thousands per kilogram is an overstatement, but the cost is significant and there's only so much you can do about it (short of building a space elevator).
someperson 5y ago
Bigelow Aerospace laid off all its employees in March 2020.
- teh_klev 5y ago
  Possibly just temporarily: https://spacenews.com/bigelow-aerospace-lays-off-entire-workforce/ https://spacenews.com/bigelow-aerospace-lays-off-entire-work... "A company spokesperson confirmed March 23 that the company laid off all its employees because of the governor’s order, and that it faced “fines, penalties and threats of having our business license revoked” if it remained open. The spokesperson added that the company planned to hire workers back once the emergency directive was lifted, although other sources interpreted the layoffs as a permanent measure."
Robotbeat 5y ago
Yeah, Made In Space has a 3D printer on the ISS. Axiom Space is making space station modules and a new space station. Bigelow is actually completely gone now, though, as are most of the asteroid mining companies (partly because we abandoned the Obama era Asteroid Redirect ARRM mission in favor of the Apollo-like Artemis). Also, NanoRacks is a company people should know about. They’ve been involved in space infrastructure for a while, using ISS as a platform, and just installed a new large airlock on ISS. There is necessarily some churn in these businesses because things like SpaceX’s Starship are completely changing a lot of old assumptions.
beaconstudios 5y ago
Orbit Fab are making what they call "gas stations in space" for satellites to refuel instead of re-entering or requiring their own launches to refuel. Heard about them a few weeks back and thought it was an interesting idea.

by WJW 5y ago

lmm 5y ago

What would such a company be doing right now? I'm sure that we'll eventually want such equipment in orbit, but I don't think working on it now helps us get there - right now a lathe or milling machine in space doesn't make any sense as launching the raw materials would be more expensive than launching the finished part. Maybe for a Mars colony where you want the ability to make replacement parts in situ, or maybe if we were already at the point of having a captured asteroid to work with.

WJW 5y ago
Fair point, though I'll point out that we can also argue there's no point in capturing asteroids until there is machinery available to work with them. I was also just thinking about "boring things" like coffee machines, laundry machines and space beds for the space station hotels that the Bigelow people are designing. Surely you'd want to design those well up front so you can iterate the design a few times before the first guests arrive?
- icegreentea2 5y ago
  The selling pickaxes to gold miners formula only works when people are pretty sure there is gold. Funding development of orbital smelters would be an incredibly risky proposition given that pay-off would be contingent on someone else figuring out asteroid mining or something. And as for "boring things". Same type of deal. It's risky throwing money at a problem that only has a payoff if someone else succeeds their own high risk activity. Like Bigelow currently has no staff, and has totally missed all of its planned milestones. Especially for the boring stuff, you're also going to be cramped up against someone selling solutions that just apes whatever the ISS does. Does only have instant coffee, and not having real laundry, and having to sleep strapped into a sleeping bag kind of suck? Ya. But YOU'RE IN SPACE (and that's roughly just the same thing as camping). The novelty alone should be enough to tide you through your entire first generation of customers.
- lmm 5y ago
  If you can capture an asteroid full of palladium or whatever then that's worthwhile even if all you do is take chunks of raw asteroid down to Earth for processing. But then once that's in place then it becomes worth doing some basic refining in orbit so that you're not shipping a bunch of dirt down at thousands of dollars per kilogram, and eventually it becomes worth moving more and more of the manufacturing chain up into orbit for the same reason. That's the most plausible way I can see to bootstrap things.
  - dTal 5y ago
    Surely shipping stuff down is basically free.
    - lmm 5y ago
      Putting stuff on a ballistic reentry is free, but will burn up a certain amount of your material and is very hard to do safely. Maybe China could bring one down in their big desert and not worry too much about whether it hits anyone who lives there, but many nations would balk at that, and it complicates the retrieval. Otherwise the atmosphere helps you somewhat, but you've still got to fit a heatshield and some way to decelerate. The mass limit for parachutes is pretty low, so we're probably talking about a lifting body and some proper engines - maybe air-breathing engines, which are going to be significantly cheaper (especially fuel-wise) than rocket engines but by no means free. Maybe thousands per kilogram is an overstatement, but the cost is significant and there's only so much you can do about it (short of building a space elevator).

someperson 5y ago

Bigelow Aerospace laid off all its employees in March 2020.

teh_klev 5y ago
Possibly just temporarily: https://spacenews.com/bigelow-aerospace-lays-off-entire-workforce/ https://spacenews.com/bigelow-aerospace-lays-off-entire-work... "A company spokesperson confirmed March 23 that the company laid off all its employees because of the governor’s order, and that it faced “fines, penalties and threats of having our business license revoked” if it remained open. The spokesperson added that the company planned to hire workers back once the emergency directive was lifted, although other sources interpreted the layoffs as a permanent measure."

Robotbeat 5y ago

Yeah, Made In Space has a 3D printer on the ISS. Axiom Space is making space station modules and a new space station. Bigelow is actually completely gone now, though, as are most of the asteroid mining companies (partly because we abandoned the Obama era Asteroid Redirect ARRM mission in favor of the Apollo-like Artemis). Also, NanoRacks is a company people should know about. They’ve been involved in space infrastructure for a while, using ISS as a platform, and just installed a new large airlock on ISS. There is necessarily some churn in these businesses because things like SpaceX’s Starship are completely changing a lot of old assumptions.

beaconstudios 5y ago

Orbit Fab are making what they call "gas stations in space" for satellites to refuel instead of re-entering or requiring their own launches to refuel. Heard about them a few weeks back and thought it was an interesting idea.