Solid post. In the near and long term, ISRU should be the focus for a self-sustaining space economy. AstroForge plans to launch their Mission 2 spacecraft this month to travel to the asteroid 2022 OB5 in search of metals. We are a year away from learning the feasibility of extracting extraterrestrial resources.
That was an fascinating read, Professor Allon (especially the mention of Pixxel)! Curious to hear your thoughts on whether advancements in autonomous manufacturing could be a near-term inflection point, or if we’re still too far from solving the fundamental scalability problem.
I'm really happy to read about others taking up on the term and concept of SpaceShoring: I started to propose it around a year ago, in the early months of 2024, almost surprised no one yet came up with it to embrace the transformative potential of space manufacturing.
Solid post. In the near and long term, ISRU should be the focus for a self-sustaining space economy. AstroForge plans to launch their Mission 2 spacecraft this month to travel to the asteroid 2022 OB5 in search of metals. We are a year away from learning the feasibility of extracting extraterrestrial resources.
That was an fascinating read, Professor Allon (especially the mention of Pixxel)! Curious to hear your thoughts on whether advancements in autonomous manufacturing could be a near-term inflection point, or if we’re still too far from solving the fundamental scalability problem.
I am not sure. In the short term, these will require significant maintenance, which will only increase the cost. In the long term: possibly.
All thanks to a little government startup in 2000 called the International Space Station - happy 25 years of constant crewed presence and scientific operations in low earth orbit! https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/space-station-research-and-technology/benefits-for-humanity/
I think we may see such Operations courses soon.
Economics Areas have already launched Space related courses. Harvard I think has a course on Space, Public And Commercial Economics
Wharton will try to offer the operations classes before HBS.
Would love to help in any way.
I'm really happy to read about others taking up on the term and concept of SpaceShoring: I started to propose it around a year ago, in the early months of 2024, almost surprised no one yet came up with it to embrace the transformative potential of space manufacturing.
More recently, in January 2025, I published an article about it in an anthology book, "Shades of Blue", published by McGraw Hill, titled "Spaceshoring: The Transformative Potential of Space Manufacturing", and have published a podcast episode on Linkedin summarizing it: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/albertogiacobone_text2podcast-spaceshoring-activity-7274034882983448576-4OBU/
I believe having Spaceshoring as an umbrella term will help accelerate the evaluation of this option for a number of situations.
Let's catch up further, it's quite the topic to develop!