[XorNot]

There just isn't that much demand for space.

Space is cool to nerds like me, but what do I really need from it? I've got all the navigation satellites I could want (which I don't pay for) and the best satellite imagery I use is still hyperspectral airborne imagery.

Now, of course that's not the full story but the use cases get rather specific beyond that: the launch market just isn't actually very big (afaik $30 billion a year).

[zpeti]

Without doing a google search - optical fibers factories and pharma factories can deliver higher quality products when built in space. And I bet there are hundreds of other examples.

Just because launch costs were high and these weren't viable before, doesn't mean they won't be viable now.

[panick21_]

But here is the thing, optical fiber factories in space are unproven and launch cost is only one of the difficulties with it. You need to launch it, and recover it, and then feed it into post processing all for the lower cost then doing it on earth. And even if you capture that market, how big is it?

For pharma, its not universally true. There are few things that can be done better in space, but by far not everything. Research in space makes more sense then actual production. Again even the best case is hard to see how its going to justify the valuation.

> And I bet there are hundreds of other examples.

Hundreds of other even more half baked examples. You need to account for launch cost, space constraints, space environment, landing and recovery. We have been doing this for 40 years and the medicine and fiber are things that have been talked about for 30 years at least.

[XorNot]

Fiber optic are currently so cheap that they are being used in expendable, single use applications in the Russia/Ukraine war in spools of 50+km.

You're talking about achieving highly marginal gains in product quality at the expense of having to launch into space literally every single part of the production process and recover it from space.

Which includes things like "ruggedizing what you launch so it can survive the launch" and "also ruggedizing it to survive the landing".

[antonvs]

> optical fibers factories and pharma factories can deliver higher quality products when built in space

Those seem like classic examples of what you get when you have a solution in search of problems.

What’s the monetary value of the incremental improvements in those products, and how does it compare to the cost of setting up and operating manufacturing facilities in orbit?

[saalweachter]

And what could you get quality-wise if you poured an equivalent amount of money into improving ground based factories?