near-term products made in space, for space

[j05h]

Let's start a discussion about what can be made, either by hand or automation. Can we make fabric or tiles? Brewing? I'm think of things that make life more comfortable and make a module into a place. Recycling parachutes, tanks and rocket plumbing, what can Mars explorers/colonists make on hand? What will go up to a BA330-based station that can add to life onboard? Would it make sense for a lunar base to sinter it's own bricks/tiles/pottery from the start? <br /><br />If we are going to settle, we need to be able to build on what's available locally, a "space technology base". As of now, we really use 'Earth' technology with no real practice in the art of making stuff in space. (except data, of course) <br /><br />My favorite early in-space manufacturing would be a solar-sinter forge that makes heatshields from regolith. <br /><br /> Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[nexium]

It should be easy to bake low quality bricks, tiles, pottery and heat shields. Most of the other thing you mentioned require specialized equipment that will need to wait for a base or colony of 12 or more persons in my opinion. Neil

 

[gunsandrockets]

It's all about the mass<br /><br />The central reality of space flight is the reliance on rocket propulsion, which means that the prime limitations on space exploration and colonization are the mass limitations of rocket propulsion. Reducing the amount of mass needed to accomplish any particular mission is the key to success.<br /><br />But too often the focus on reducing off-world costs focuses on hardware, whether the focus is on re-using hardware or building hardware off-planet. But that is an incorrect focus since hardware is only a small fraction of the mass involved in rocketry. So the first priority in reducing costs should be by finding ways to aquire or use off-world consumables not hardware. Off-planet materials for rocket propellant and or life-support consumables is where the biggest benefits for cost reduction can be found.<br /><br />The near-term product made in space for space should be rocket propellant and life-support consumables. Not only are the greatest mass benefits to be found in consumables, consumables are also the easiest product to manufacture off-world.

 

[j05h]

I know it's all about mass. That's why I'm all about creative recycling. It's not like the future Martian will spend his days with a pick-ax in hand, hacking away in the ice mine. They will have spare time and will inevitably make things. What are likely early items? I'm thinking beyond basic volatiles, which we agree is needed overall. <br /><br />One thing I've thought of with the Meridiani spherules on Mars is jewelry. Even cheesy, hand-made macrame with the Mars Blueberries would have immense Earth-side value. <br /><br />Looms are easy to make, no specialized equipment needed for the most basic. <br /><br />I guess what I'm asking is how do we bootstrap a consumer market in/from space? Not 'mission' but 'goods'. Thoughts?<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[thereiwas]

The cost of shipping such goods from Mars to Earth would hardly cover their value, unless they were as rare as diamonds. Considering the ground is littered with blueberries on Mars that is known not to be the case. Only their rarity <i>on earth</i> could justify it. A certain number of flatlanders would be willing to pay top-gouge pricing, but not very many I think. Now for the Mars residents, they might be very popular. This is what I understand the original question to be about.<br /><br />It would be cheaper to ship blueberries back to earth in bulk and make the jewelry here. Hardly to provide much income to the Martians.<br /><br />The excellent Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson goes into this sort of thing. He doesn't see much trade developing until both Earth and Mars have space elevators.<br />

 

[j05h]

how about local pottery? Rocket nozzles and such for building kilns? There are a lot of fairly simple things that people need that don't need to be shipped after a certain level of local development. Modern technology, I think, drives down the amount of people/time when it starts making sense to build stuff in-situ. <br /><br />The reason I suggested macrame-with-berries is that a duffel bag of them on the way back from a 5 year Mars mission could net you a pretty penny. A little different than growing a local economy. Interesting thought that they could be very popular as Mars jewelry. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[gunsandrockets]

[I guess what I'm asking is how do we bootstrap a consumer market in/from space?]<br /><br />Okay, my mistake. <br /><br />I was going by the wording of the subject heading. I assumed you meant products made and consumed off-planet, not economic trade products.

 

[bpfeifer]

Sailors from the age of sail often engaged in small scale trade during long voyages to kill boredom and to make a few extra bucks when they got home. They bought small quantities of high value goods like spices. They also spent idle hours making scrimshaw or building model ships. Your macremay idea certainly fits with historic activities.<br /><br />I think you mentioned fewmenting/brewing early in the thread. This is a good idea for two reasons. First, you can always find some food scrap or crop to brew, and secondly, due to different gravitational conditions, it may even have unique flavor characteristics. The key word here is "uniqe". If it's not uniqe, it's not worth sending back to earth and selling. Of course alcohol will be popular fo rlocal consumption as well.<br /><br />The hard thing, is that right now most of our industries are based on petrochemicals which wo't be availible. Most of the rest are based on agriculture. If you can create a large scale agricultural facility, there are many things you can make, but you'll have to bring all of the nutrients with you, so are you really saving mass in the end? When plants grow, the only thing that is locally availilble is sunlight (or power), but the rest of the structure, all of the nutrients have to come from somewhere. Yes, composting human and plant waste will help, but that is only recycling. If you grow a babmoo shoot, and then build something from that bamboo, you are taking those nutrients out fo the system, and they must be replaced somehow. Closed loops are tricky things. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Brian J. Pfeifer http://sabletower.wordpress.com<br /> The Dogsoldier Codex http://www.lulu.com/sabletower<br /> </div>

 

[spacester]

Good observations, bpfeifer. <br /><br />Just for the record I claimed dibs on lunar brewing a long time ago. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> My life's goal, doncha know, lol. But brew from food scraps? Ugh! Gimme barley malt and hops and let's see how those yeasties like the 1/6th gee! Of course, vodka is an option, but I'll leave that to others. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />Closed loops are a fool's errand. Recycling is essential, but that doesn't mean you need to get carried away creating all kinds of systems to close every loop. What is desired is to have low cost inputs and high value outputs. If those inputs are from Earth and it makes the whole enterprise work, then do it that way.<br /><br />Ultimately, the input nutrients are minerals. Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphate, Potassium, Carbon, etc. The trick is to have life processes take up those minerals, and move the biologically available stuff up a food chain. Fix the Nitrogen, make the Carbon and Iron organically available (chelation), have critters make proteins, have other critters eat those critters, etc. <br /><br />Check out the Lunar Farm Thread<br /><br />But to answer JO5H's question, although from a Lunar and not a Martian perspective: <br /><br />Glass.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"But brew from food scraps? Ugh! Gimme barley malt and hops and let's see how those yeasties like the 1/6th gee! Of course, vodka is an option, but I'll leave that to others."</font><br /><br />Beer will be one of the hardest lunar alcohol options to support. Are you going to devote a largish hydroponics lab to growing said hops and barley? They're fairly space-intensive. By contrast, as bpfeifer noted, you can make 'alcohol' with almost any food that contains sugar, and a still is easy to construct. Hooch that actually tastes good is of tertiary consideration for the true lunar lush. <br /><br />Mind you, the true entrepreneur will find ways to make large quantities of low-cost rotgut for the indiscriminate, a moderate quantity that's been filtereed and aged for those willing to pay a bit more, and a small amount of something that's really drinkable for those willing to shell out cash for a truly tasty tipple.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"But to answer JO5H's question, although from a Lunar and not a Martian perspective: <br /><br />Glass. "</font><br /><br />Dangit! I started a post yesterday but something came up and I had to cancel out. Glass blowing was one of the items in it. Very minimal infrastructure required; the raw materials should be easy enough to acquire, and any number of useful items can be made from it.<br /><br />Mind you -- as far as lunar commerce goes -- my own target woul lie in a different direction. To heck with this handicraft stuff. I call dibs on the <b>First Lunar Bank and Trust</b>. Madness you say? What do lunies need with (or have) money? Actually -- my business wouldn't deal much with them. Most of my customers are Earth-side... specifically people desirous of off-planet accounts. Such would trump (in spades) the benefits provided by accounts held in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands.<br /><br />Oh -- I have a second enterprise as well. I have a server room with a few petabytes of hard drives. No one but <b>Lunar Data Vault, Inc.</b> can offer *true* off-site data storage. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[j05h]

<i>>> "But to answer JO5H's question, although from a Lunar and not a Martian perspective:<br /> />> Glass. "<br /> /> Dangit! I started a post yesterday but something came up and I had to cancel out. Glass blowing was one of the items in it. Very minimal infrastructure required; the raw materials should be easy enough to acquire, and any number of useful items can be made from it. </i><br /><br />We've discussed glass before and it is a great suggestion. My buddy that did some glass in art school says that zero-G glass-making should allow perfect spheres from surface tension. Regulated, concentrated sunlight would give great control over the cooling/annealing process. Silica is available everywhere, not just the Moon. <br /><br />You can make almost anything from glass. Utensils, bowls, cookware, household items (shelves, beds, stairs, aqua/hydroponic tanks). Very plastic material. We can probably make pressure vessels and spacecraft components with it, eventually. <br /><br />What kind of hardware would be needed for a one or two blowhole Lunar glass shop? Would it be solar-heated?<br /><br />As for off-planet data vaults, it is a strong idea as well. LEO and GEO are also good locations, maybe not for rackspace but for nano/microsats with data handling. I am looking more for physical products than data. Any ideas?<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">" I am looking more for physical products than data. Any ideas?"</font><br /><br />Perhaps you should define the parameters a bit more of what you're looking for. The title indicates you're looking for products from space for space. This implies products made by humans living off-Earth for other humans living off-Earth. However, your initial example was a heat shield from regolith. This wouldn't be a product for humans living off-Earth so much as for someone returning to Earth (or Mars). In your second post of the thread, after dismissing G&R's note about consumables and propellant (what will be two of the biggest 'markets' until the advent of reactionless drives and 100% closed-loop environments), you suggested blueberries as an Earth-side market for Martian handicrafts. Mars-to-Earth trade is a completely different animal than what the title suggests, as G&R noted.<br /><br />As people noted, transporting Mars-produced goods (or even Lunar-produced goods) to Earth imposes a transport cost that makes their end price high enough as to make most products untenable. Since you appeared to be looking for trade with Earth, I suggested two forms of commerce that involve only data. Data is a mass-free product with light-speed transit capabilities and therefore is an excellent candidate for producing a balance of trade with Earth. Except you essentially dismiss that, after lauding the possibilities of glass products... which would obviously have zero market potential for Earth.<br /><br />Can we have some consistency here? Who is trading with whom? Lunies with Lunies and Martians with Martians... Or are Lunies and Martians and Bigelonians cross-trading? Or should this trade involve the groundhogs on Earth? Are you just interested in finished goods, or are raw materials (other than propellants and reaction mass) fair game?

 

[j05h]

Morris - We've discussed volatile and data sales to death. We know they will be the big markets. What else is probable and in what configuration? I'm really thinking of things that will be made and used locally first, hence pottery and brewing. What kind of added value can explorers/settlers expect to contribute? Once these local goods economies have developed, I would expect (using those big-industry volatiles) to spread these products to others. <br /><br />Sorry if I wasn't more concise, I'm fighting a cold and my head isn't fully together. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[kelvin_zero]

finally found a link that looks vaguely reputable.<br /><br />http://www.isruinfo.com/index.php?page=research<br /><br />(it was linked to from the wiki article)<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Situ_Resource_Utilization<br /><br />I would like to see many more prizes for research in this area. There are so many people out there working in fields that could be relevant to this.

 

[annodomini2]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Morris - We've discussed volatile and data sales to death. We know they will be the big markets. What else is probable and in what configuration? I'm really thinking of things that will be made and used locally first, hence pottery and brewing. What kind of added value can explorers/settlers expect to contribute? Once these local goods economies have developed, I would expect (using those big-industry volatiles) to spread these products to others. <br /><br />Sorry if I wasn't more concise, I'm fighting a cold and my head isn't fully together. <br /><br />Josh <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I understand your perspective on this, how do we make space commercially viable, in todays comsumeristic society. (Look at the moon landings as political and social engineering)<br /><br />The first and primary cost of space based commercialism will be the basic requirements of life for humans, so oxygen, water and food. <br /><br />2nd, Will be materials for producing structures, vehicles and energy (Confirm if I am wrong, but isn't there a lot of easily accessible titanium on the moon?) plus the He3. Which supposedly could be beneficial for fusion? Therefore with the right investment, fusion plants on the moon could use the energy generated from the He3 Fusion produce titanium for the growing space industry locally as larger quantities of solar power would be available due to lack of atmosphere etc, and cost cutting. (sorry i've had a few beers before typing this <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />)<br /><br />3rd once you have said materials you need storage and such equipment to handle said produced products, obviously locally aquired would be a lot cheaper than shipping back and forth from earth.<br /><br />4. Production requirements, i.e. industrial facilities to produce the desired items in a way that cannot be performed elsewhere.<br /><br />4. And I think is the point of the question, given the forum, technology. The product you <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"I'm really thinking of things that will be made and used locally first, hence pottery and brewing. What kind of added value can explorers/settlers expect to contribute? Once these local goods economies have developed, I would expect (using those big-industry volatiles) to spread these products to others. "</font><br /><br />The problem is that you're dealing with two (or three depending on how you count) very different markets and very different goals. The cottage industries that the thread title indicates and you seem to be 70% focused on is unlikely to ever have anything to do with the import-export market you toss in on occasion.<br /><br />I'll use the American expansion to the West as an example. When pioneers migrated from the East to (for example) Oklahoma, they took all of their possessions in one or two wagons. Once there they made use of in situ resources to make *everything* they possibly could -- their homes, furniture, food, tools, power (i.e. firewood), hooch, etc. They didn't have the money (nor were there the trade routes) to buy basic necessities from products made back East when it was at all possible to avoid.<br /><br />Everyone made as much of their needs as they could on their own. However, certain people were better at some things. Jeb was a really good woodworker and made better tables, chairs and beds than anyone. People would trade him food, hooch, and labor for his furniture. Elijah knew his way around a still better than anyone, and likewise would get plenty of goods and labor for his product. Mongo the blacksmith likewise had a local market.<br /><br />All of these and other cottage industries served a couple of purposes. First, it made the local community more productive, as people were able to specialize on the tasks they were best at. Since survival was marginal -- any additional efficiencies were quite literally livesavers. Second, the local products provided relief from the need to buy the extr

 

[rocketman5000]

good parallels and examples. Now comes the kicker, the pioneers paid for their own wagons and oxen. At the moment it is hard for the averager lunanaut (Lunie) to pay his way to the moon.<br /><br />

 

[thereiwas]

That's because wagons and oxen were a mature technology back then, developed, refined, and commoditized over hundreds of years for other purposes. Hope it doesn't take that long.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Now comes the kicker..."</font><br /><br />The analogy was intended just to illustrate the disconnect between internal and external markets. Stretch any analogy too far and it'll snap. The *huge* numbers of differences between the two in this case means this particular one won't stretch far at all.