We do education outreach to K-16 learning institutions around the world. There are many things that can be studied in the near absence of gravity. Fluids are a huge area of research (surface tension, sedimentation, etc). We germinate seeds and look for genetic changes, people study brain organoids, artificial retinas, crystals, et al
Historically, there was an issue with dosing pembrolizumab, as the manufacturing process was creating large uneven crystals that required physicians to process at the clinic to ensure proper dosing, but in microgravity? The crystallization is just gorgeous. absolutely beautiful
Take a look at this image, https://issnationallab.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/merck_...
Left hand side are the crystals grown on the ground. Right hand side is 0g.
That change made it possible to turn it into a safe injectable that patients could take at home. And they were able to recreate those conditions on Earth, https://issnationallab.org/iss360/merck-lab-publishes-pembro...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6889310/
This is more of a scientist said at a conference to another scientist kind of story, but apparently, they got some seed crystals from the ISS that are now used on Earth.
https://techconnectworld.com/World2025/a.php?i=602
You can do a lot more than make just seed crystals. It turns out that cells in our body are inside of a 3D environment with forces / tension acting in all directions. When you smoosh these in a lab (very literally) and try to observe how a drug behaves in a model cell / model organ, then it doesn't have the same physical constraints acting on it. BUT in 0g that's different. In 0g, cells behave slightly more similarly to how they behave in vivo and that could be a huge difference maker for drug discovery.
One breakthrough drug alone is worth more to humanity than what the ISS has cost across its lifespan.
https://iafastro.directory/iac/paper/id/89939/abstract-pdf/I...
Semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, solar cell crystals, and artificial organs are on the short list. The International space station actually has done some experiments on this premise with promising results
Looks cool and if they could make chips in space, it will be beyond crazy. It will be over time and way over budget but in the end will be insanely profitable.
Not that anything is really produced in space either, more like passively transformed into some crystal form from a liquid state or whatever. Environmental assistance more than anything else.
https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-happens-to-spiders-... (with video)
In the 1960s, they used sounding rockets to do experiments on how molten metals solidify in microgravity, with manufacturing applications in mind.
In the 1970s, they ran experiments, also on sounding rockets, on melting and solidifying materials without letting them touch a container: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19840059952
More recently, many microgravity experiments have been performed on the International Space Station. Experiments were done on protein crystal growth aboard the ISS in 2000, just a couple of years after it was launched. (I think it took some time to get the experimental facilities up and running.)
Another experiment on the
Here’s an assortment of links on the subject, starting with a good overview:
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/applications-within-re...
https://issnationallab.org/research-and-science/space-resear...
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/the-benefits-of-microg...
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200001550
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20150023126
https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/manufacturingscience/...
If you manufacture there how do you recover it?
So you tell them where to deliver it (anywhere on the planet that its orbit goes over..), they tell you when it will be arriving, and it reenters and lands there.
Article about a recent test (launched on a Falcon 9):
https://www.afrl.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4629122...
The graphic shows it reentering the atmosphere.
But I remember watching live when they launched a Tesla into Orbit, was it dumb, was it pointless and potentially wasteful? Sure, but that moment seeing humanity once again reach out to the stars I could feel it deep in my bones the space race was starting again.
Sure have lots of problems down here but the eternally yearning of humanity to extend out our hands to grasp the cosmos, to touch heaven is a pursuit I think highly worthwhile.
Did they though? From what I’ve read the places where they build get lots of money and infrastructure (not only DC-related) from them.
Data centers in brownfields and urban environments see near-zero resistance. There are data centers in skyscrapers in the center of most major U.S. cities, and nobody cares.
Stop plowing down the forests, slurping up the aquifers, and digging up the prairies, and people will stop complaining.
Space datacenters are just SDI2, a convenient bullshit to be able to funnel more money to campaign donors.
As long as there’s space on earth, Space Datacenters can never be economical. It’s rally that simple.