Dateline: September 4 2031
The success of the SpaceX reusable rocket, Starship, has given them a unique capability: to hold cargo in orbit, ready to be delivered anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. Not just to landing zones or spaceports.
They call it Starfall, and this is how it works. Specially adapted Starship freighters are fitted with dozens of re-entry pods loaded with supplies. When the need arises, a pod can be released to deorbit and land at a target location, using parachutes, similar to an airdrop, within 30 minutes, anywhere.
Naturally the military was one of the first customers for Starfall, but it’s also proving to be invaluable for responding to natural disasters and emergencies such as floods and earthquakes. The pods are reusable, so it’s cost effective.
But the bigger opportunity is delivering specialised products to Earth that are made in space. Such as semiconductor crystals and retinal implants, which are almost impossible to manufacture under normal gravity conditions. Starfall has reduced the cost of retrieving these products by a hundredfold, making them commercially viable — and very profitable.
Not to be outdone, China has started build-to-order fabbing on its newest space station module. Though China’s Landspace rocket can’t match Starship’s capabilities, it is offering similar delivery pricing with its SkyPod service. It remains to be seen if SkyPod will be able to sustain its schedules as the pods aren’t fully reusable, but for now customers are welcoming the competition.
With Starfall and SkyPod delivering the goods, the business of space freight and orbital factories is set to boom. /First published in Mindbullets September 4 2025.
Making it in space
Space isn’t just for astronauts and tourists
Dateline: November 12 2033
We’ve got used to astronauts from all sorts of countries heading into orbit and visiting one of the several space stations there. And we’re also hardly excited when yet another multimillionaire and their friends launch on a suborbital flip, or ride SpaceX around the planet.
But there’s another industry that’s booming in space. It’s Zero-G manufacturing — making stuff in space, or in orbit at least. That’s not as crazy as it sounds. You’re probably thinking: why send materials into orbit at great expense and then bring them back, when you could do the same thing right here on Earth? But launch costs are getting cheaper and cheaper, and there are unique advantages to making things in microgravity.
Specialised products such as bioprinted organs, ultra-pure fibre optics and defect-free large crystals can only be made or grown in an environment where there’s no gravity to disturb the process. Nanodiamonds and 2D materials such as graphene can be more precisely controlled in zero-g conditions.
High-performance superconductors and quantum computer chips are also easier to produce at scale, while alloys made from different density materials in solution won’t settle out during production. And if you need a hard vacuum, space has it in abundance.
These are all high value, specialised components and products, which justifies the expense of launching the materials and machinery into orbit. But as space factories become more numerous and accessible we can expect demand to increase and new discoveries are likely.
The next lunar lander or Mars mother ship could be constructed in space itself. Using 3D printing techniques and robotic assembly, spaceships far bigger than anything that can be launched from the surface will just be made in space. /First published in Mindbullets November 11 2021.
Despite appearances to the contrary, Futureworld cannot and does not predict the future. The Mindbullets scenarios are fictitious and designed purely to explore possible futures, and challenge and stimulate strategic thinking.
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