Given the current state of the lift industry and price per kilo, it is economically unfeasible to manufacture or mine anything in space if it needs to be transported down or up the gravity well of any planet. Not even chips.
But if that would be a real market case, then Elon's solution is actually the optimal one, and very similar to the possible approach which more knowledgeable space analysts said for years. Basically it is super pointless for humans now to have big manned space stations for any economical purposes. We should build them of course, but they will be a net loss for centuries. If any space research or space manufacturing would be required by the market, then one-off space missions are the only rational way to do it cheaply. Something like the platform showcased here, or something bigger, like a converted Dragon/Cygnus/etc. ship into a mini lab. Commercial Space Stations is a bunk program, specifically in the word "Commercial".
Commercial manufacturing in space can be economically viable, as long as most of the components do not come from Earth.
If you build titanium stations in space, but all your titanium come from the moon, the price structure is wildly different. The price of shipping material is the price of building a railgun on the moon.
Absolutely not cheap,but the operating cost afterward is very low. And since the moon is geolocked, you can target any lagrange point with very good precision.
There will still be a need for components coming from earth, but the moon should be able to send all the material for structural parts (titanium), and also solar panels.
This would be very unfortunate. Luckily, we only need to build the rail gun (and the mining/refining facilities) once. After that, the cost is marginal.
PS: I would also leave it to everyone to evaluate how many seconds would this railgun keep existing until the other superpower will blow it up to pieces, "just in case". Question works the same for any owner and any opponent pairing.
Hydrolysis can be used to make Hydrogen, so as long you have enough ice. You fill it up with fuel needed to go up again, and send in down with the gravity well with the payload.
leave it in space then; massive star ships shouldnt need to come down to planets anyway
LOL.
The following isn't more absurd, in fact opposite, alas. A much better payoff than microgravitated materials research, and further, it makes sense to start NOW
Evolve bony vertebrates to thrive in microgravity. Use that learning to genetically enhance humansThe former requires some scientific breakthroughs for which it is unpredictable when they will happen.
The latter is an engineering problem with very little unknowns, which is guaranteed to be solvable today if enough money are provided for it.
Until now, the additional costs for rotating ships could be avoided, as long as humans did not go farther away than the Moon.
For an expedition to Mars or even to some more distant celestial body, currently there is no known way that would avoid severe health damage for the humans, without using artificial gravity.
The experiments on the ISS have shown that for mice a gravity of at least 2/3 of that of Earth is required to completely avoid all health problems, while a gravity of at least 1/3 of that of Earth is necessary to avoid the most dangerous health problems.
It is unlikely that humans will prove to be much more resilient than mice.
(Yes I agree rotating spaceships are cool/feasible, but what if you are dead set on finding "benefits" of microgravity?)
And out there, you have free radiation for that accelerated evolution..