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Humanity's Biggest Machines Will Be Built in Space (popularmechanics.com)
When rockets can no longer hold oversize payloads, building in space might be the best way to go. Popular Mechanics: Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Made In Space is working to make that dream a reality. For the past few years, they've operated the Additive Manufacturing Facility, one of the only 3D printers in space. While the AMF sits comfortably aboard the International Space Station, Made In Space has plans to launch a new printer that would operate exclusively in the vacuum of space. Their prototype, called Archinaut, is scheduled to launch later this year. Future machines like Archinaut will be able to print nearly everything in orbit -- where there's no limit on size. "We can manufacture a structure that couldn't support its own mass if it were on Earth," says Made In Space CEO Andrew Rush. "The only practical limitation you have is how much material you're providing to the system." The first Archinaut prototype is mostly just a proof-of-concept and won't be constructing mile-wide satellites anytime soon. "First you crawl, then you walk, then you run," says Rush. "We'll start out with manufacturing space-optimized trusses and booms and reflectors to provide a supply capability that we can't currently achieve." But once this tech gets off the ground, it can be used to build structures as big as their owners want them.
I fail to see what's the gain between launching a rocket with 1 ton of preassembled componned or 1 ton of materia used by a space 3D printer to build those component. And unless there's 0% loss during the 3D printer process, I would even say it's less efficient that way.
The only way I can see a real gain is if most of the materia weight come directly from space. For instance, asteriod mining.
Elok
It makes total sense. It is always easier to build things in space. Just like living on Mars. It is so much easier than living on Earth. And now we have AI which makes it even easier.
Nope. Drop your socket, and it slowly starts do drift away from where you let it go. As long as you don't actually throw it away from you, it will remain nearby for quite some time. And since you can't throw fast enough to appreciably change its orbit, the only way it's on a decay orbit to Scotland is if you were already on that path yourself.
Heck, it doesn't even have any differential in gravitational acceleration to power it's rolling underneath to the exact center of your space-car like it inevitably would here on Earth. And if it somehow manages the feat anyway - well, there's no ground underneath it to make it difficult to get to (which would probably dramatically reduce the odds of it happening in the first place).
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I fail to see what's the gain between launching a rocket with 1 ton of preassembled componned or 1 ton of materia used by a space 3D printer to build those component.
The 3D printer doesn't require you to decide what to make with it prior to launch and it allows you to skip the delivery lead time for a product which could be substantial. Otherwise you are correct. You probably would need some sort of 3D printer like technology to manufacture a lot of stuff in space simply because a lot of the manufacturing techniques we use on earth simply wouldn't be viable due to supply chain issues and the need for compact and flexible production equipment.
The only way I can see a real gain is if most of the materia weight come directly from space. For instance, asteriod mining.
Asteroid mining is an idea that won't happen for a very long time. There are several huge obstacles to it including: 1) The fact that we don't have any mining or refining equipment that is space worthy nor any reasonable prospects of getting such equipment anytime soon. 2) The extravagant cost of getting the equipment (which again we don't have) to the asteroid and doing useful work with it. 3) Most useful products require multiple materials/components which cannot be sourced from a single asteroid even if it were financially viable to do so. For a long time to come it's going to be a lot cheaper to launch stuff from earth than to mine it from an asteroid.
Also the biggest obstacles actually are not material weight. We just haven't addressed the hard issues because it's SO expensive to get to orbit that they haven't been worth worrying about. But even if you drop cost to orbit to zero, the cost of building the technology and infrastructure to manufacture in space will likely dwarf even the current launch costs. Think of it this way. Ford builds cars and one of its assembly plants costs north of a billion dollars to create. That is just for final assembly. The cost of the production facilities and parts to build the product in its supply chain easily costs 100 times more than that (there are about 30,000 parts in a typical car). And we have proven and well developed sources of raw materials. All that to build a product we know how to make with proven technology we can manufacture with economies of scale. Making something the cost and complexity of cars in space at any sort of scale would cost a large fraction of the world GDP for the foreseeable future.
Space based manufacturing is arguably a worthwhile goal but we need to be realistic about how long it will take to make it economically viable.
You don't want to build large structures in near Earth orbit anyway. Tidal forces would require substantially stronger structures than would be necessary farther from a gravity well. Also, even the small amount of atmospheric friction there would require you to periodically boost your structure back into a higher orbit, and the fuel cost for large structures would be prohibitive.
There's considerable evidence to suggest that there's plenty of asteroids out there that are nearly pure iron - as in all we have to do is chop it up, hammer it out, or melt it down and cast/print with it.
Oh is that all?
Do you have even the vaguest idea how hard and expensive what you just proposed actually is? What equipment do you plan to use? Because literally none exists or is even in development to do that. We don't have more than even the vaguest idea how we could possibly do industrial scale mining in the vacuum of space. We don't have the technology and won't for some time to come.
Even if 10% of the material is some sort of vacuum-hardening epoxy bonding agent made on Earth, you can still get 90% of your material from space.
Got any more made up statistics you'd like to cite?
Energy storage alone would eat up most of the bonus you get from zero-G.
Why would you need to store energy? The lack of atmosphere means the sun is twice as bright, and it doesn't set. There is no "night" in space.
Constructing a space elevator would make it significantly cheaper to reach space. There are a lot of technical problems that we have to solve first such as how to mass produce carbon nanotubes in space, but the benefits would be enormous.