Dateline: November 11 2033
We’ve grown used to astronauts from various countries heading into orbit and visiting one of the several space stations. We’re also hardly excited when yet another multimillionaire and their friends launch on a sub-orbital 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 here on Earth? But launch costs are becoming 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. 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 that could truly change the world.
Of course the next lunar lander or Mars mothership 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 only be made in space. / First published in Mindbullets November 10 2021.
Mars mothership printed in 3D
3D printing in space solves problem of launching huge rockets
Dateline: November 2 2026
A decade ago the first 3D printer to go to space was sent to the International Space Station (ISS). It proved to be so useful that more, bigger printers soon followed.
Within a few years there was a veritable factory in space, churning out all manner of spare parts and items necessary for the maintenance of the ISS.
Then came the realisation that it was far more efficient to send up printing materials by SpaceX courier rocket than to build giant spacecraft and space hotels here on earth and expend enormous amounts of fuel to launch them out of the atmosphere. The maximum diameter of the rocket payload was always a constraining factor when designing structures destined for space.
But when the space modules are manufactured in weightless conditions by 3D-printing composite panels, huge boxy habitable structures can be easily assembled by astronauts and robots, making a roomy space hotel a feasible project.
Now they’re building the gigantic mothership that will be needed to take 200 colonists to Mars. Only with 3D printing in space can this even be considered. The final product will resemble a city apartment block rather than a spaceship, and will have the aerodynamics of a brick. But that’s okay, because it will never have to travel through the atmosphere, only the vast emptiness of space.
The greenies are rightly unhappy with this development as the base material is 80% thermoplastic: “We’ve filled the oceans with plastic pollution, and now you want to pollute space with plastic too!” /First published on Mindbullets October 22 2014.
• 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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