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In-Situ Space Structure Manufacturing Technology

LI

About this project

Space is the next frontier. It sounds cliche, but now it is real. The space industry is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2040. The biggest impact for this boost came from SpaceX, which has reduced the launch costs by 95% so far and they intend to reduce it even further. The obvious impact of this would be to start building space structures which were prohibitively expensive so far.  In the past there were attempts to build space mirrors which would reflect sunlight during night so that PV cells could generate electricity at night. Now there are discussions about using space mirrors to divert solar light coming to earth. 

Another obvious development will be building space structures with artificial gravity. All these would require in-situ space manufacturing technology. In other words, rather than building a space station piece by piece on earth and shipping piece by piece to space, why don't we build the whole thing in space with raw materials? Sort of using a giant 3D printer for building a space structure out of metal and composites. The technology for this would not be a regular 3D printer but rather a printer with no frame. So that you can instruct the print head to build something 2 km away with precision.

The technology is already partially developed and it needs to be tested in space. We are looking for open-minded partners/investors/individuals/countries/companies who think out of the box and be part of this futuristic project.    

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Visibility
Public
Last updated
27 Jul 2022

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Proposal

Our Proposal

Need: which problem(s) does your proposal solve?

We would like to develop new on demand manufacturing technology to build space structures in space. We want to ship only the essential manufacturing ingredients to space and have the mechanism build the space structure all on its own. Obviously, there may be some operations that need human intervention during the process, but the bulk of the manufacturing should be done in space. This way we would reduce the manufacturing cost of space structure to 1/1000 of what it would cost otherwise (estimated). This would also speed up the manufacturing process immensely. Since robot mechanisms can work day and night and do not need air, not water and they don't pee, they would work 24/7 and finish the manufacturing job much faster than humans.   

Approach: how does your project solve the problem(s)?

Technology has already been invented and the first preliminary tests were successful. Now the scaled-up version needs to be tested on earth, and later on, it needs to be tested in space. There may be fill-in-the-gaps type problems during development as always happen during prototyping. 

Alternatives: what other alternatives could solve the problem(s)?

What we have found appears to be the most economical and fastest way to solve the problem. There are alternative ways available but AO (Atomic Oxygen) problem would deteriorate the material very fast.

Benefits: what are the benefits of your proposal?

The proposed technology would revolutionize manufacturing space structures and enable us to construct giant stations with artificial gravity in space. These stations would serve as temporary manned/womenned stations and would not tax the occupants with microgravity. That would increase the time we spend in space. Other than that, building space mirrors would be another benefit of the technology which would solve the energy storage problem by proving sunlight at night. 

Advantage: what gives your project the competitive edge?

This is brand new technology which would open up a whole new market.

Prospective Partners: what might you expect from prospective project partners?

We expect to form a new company and an initial investment of $20 million to start up the project. Partners are expected to contribute to terrestrial and space testing of the technology.