SpaceX planning to use Starship for manufacturing in space
It appears the enthusiastic investment response last week to the potential of using Varda’s re-turnable capsule for manufacturing in space (especially of pharmceuticals) has caught SpaceX’s interest. According to a news report yesterday, SpaceX has now begun developing a program to use Starship for the same purpose, delivering the raw materials in orbit for short or long periods while these products are produced automatically and then returning them for sale on Earth.
Under the plan, internally called Starfall, SpaceX’s Starship rocket would bring products such as pharmaceutical components to space in small, uncrewed capsules, said one of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential.
Starship would then deploy the capsules, which would spend time in orbit before reentering the atmosphere, where they could be recovered back on Earth, the person added.
This description by this anonymous source seems inaccurate however. Why even consider using these small separate capsules when the entire operation can be put inside Starship, which can then bring everything home when ready? Moreover, Starship’s ability to put a lot of mass in a large space up into orbit gives it an great advantage over the smaller capsules being developed by companies like Varda.
Either way, the advantages of weightlessness for producing products for profit are finally being realized, after decades of blockage by government intransigence. Since the Challenger accident in 1986 and Reagan’s order that the shuttle would no longer not be used for commercial purposes, NASA has forbidden production on its spacecraft and ISS of any products for sale afterward.
Now that the cost of launch has dropped significantly (Thank you Elon Musk!), many investors and companies are seeing great potential for manufacturing in space. And those profits will help feed a private space industry, making the government agency of NASA even more irrelevant.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It appears the enthusiastic investment response last week to the potential of using Varda’s re-turnable capsule for manufacturing in space (especially of pharmceuticals) has caught SpaceX’s interest. According to a news report yesterday, SpaceX has now begun developing a program to use Starship for the same purpose, delivering the raw materials in orbit for short or long periods while these products are produced automatically and then returning them for sale on Earth.
Under the plan, internally called Starfall, SpaceX’s Starship rocket would bring products such as pharmaceutical components to space in small, uncrewed capsules, said one of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential.
Starship would then deploy the capsules, which would spend time in orbit before reentering the atmosphere, where they could be recovered back on Earth, the person added.
This description by this anonymous source seems inaccurate however. Why even consider using these small separate capsules when the entire operation can be put inside Starship, which can then bring everything home when ready? Moreover, Starship’s ability to put a lot of mass in a large space up into orbit gives it an great advantage over the smaller capsules being developed by companies like Varda.
Either way, the advantages of weightlessness for producing products for profit are finally being realized, after decades of blockage by government intransigence. Since the Challenger accident in 1986 and Reagan’s order that the shuttle would no longer not be used for commercial purposes, NASA has forbidden production on its spacecraft and ISS of any products for sale afterward.
Now that the cost of launch has dropped significantly (Thank you Elon Musk!), many investors and companies are seeing great potential for manufacturing in space. And those profits will help feed a private space industry, making the government agency of NASA even more irrelevant.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Thank goodness that companies are finally working toward space manufacturing. We should get many superior or otherwise impossible products into the hands of consumers. Space is finally going to bring us the many benefits that we have been expecting for about two-thirds of a century, and the general public will soon discover the benefits of space — benefits that we have not received from our heavy investment in our government-run space program.
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Robert asked: “ Why even consider using these small separate capsules when the entire operation can be put inside Starship, which can then bring everything home when ready?”
It could be that different processes take different times to occur, so it may be better for different capsules to each contain one process. This way, a company gets its own goods back as soon as they are ready rather than wait for the longest process to complete.
For instance, one process could take hours to form the product, but another may be a crystallization that takes weeks or months of a slow cooling method. Think of it as the difference between quenching steel and annealing it.
“Moreover, Starship’s ability to put a lot of mass in a large space up into orbit gives it an great advantage over the smaller capsules being developed by companies like Varda.”
I suspect that eventually there will be companies that will want to process their materials in large batches, and Starship’s ability would pay off there. But in the meantime, I suspect that Starship is an overkill, where Falcon 9 launches could lift multiple Varda-like capsules that then would be able to independently manufacture their products. On the other hand, Starship may be able to do the job at much less cost than the Falcons can.
I suspect that SpaceX’s Starfall program (internal name) is just an idea being bandied about while the idea jells into a better plan for actual operations. As the article says: “The SpaceX program is still in the early stages of development and the plans could change.” The article says that SpaceX is in talks with potential customers, but does not say whether that is Varda and one other company or if there are a lot of companies interested in a service like this.
Either way, I am excited that this is beginning to happen. During the previous decade, I expected this kind of manufacturing to begin during the decade of the 2020s.
Not sure if I’d want to suggest mishap by appellating ‘fall’ to anything suppose to fly (like Boom! for an aircraft company); and then there’s the matter of Musk edging toward Bond Villiandom with a name suggestive of a Bond movie.
Blair Ivey,
The stuff is supposed to fly, alright, but it’s also supposed to come back. So I think having “fall” in the name is fine.
Anent the Bond Villain thing, I’d only start worrying if Elon acquires a fancy white cat. The unofficial Starbase cat, reassuringly, is neither fancy nor entirely white.