If you had consistent, inexpensive access to the microgravity environment of space, what product do you think would be most profitable from the start? I am thinking protein crystal growth/x-ray diffraction. Pharmaceutical companies need the data for drug design and the data can be communicated wirelessly without the need to return payload to Earth. Can you think of another product that would be good at first?

Jack

Not too many things that might be worth $10,000 / lb. This doesn'tcount costs for personnelor additional launched equipment needed to support production.

It might be different if production were to support space activities that would otherwise require launching from Earth.Alternatively, it might involve some product that is difficult to launch due to its fragility. Perhaps something like telescope mirrors might qualify -- if there were enough demand to manuafature several of them...

From: Jackie DeWayne Reynolds
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, May 9, 2010 2:04:30 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] First Space Product ???

If you had consistent, inexpensive access to the microgravity environment of space, what product do you think would be most profitable from the start? I am thinking protein crystal growth/x-ray diffraction. Pharmaceutical companies need the data for drug design and the data can be communicated wirelessly without the need to return payload to Earth. Can you think of another product that would be good at first?

Jack

Ball bearings.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Jackie DeWayne Reynolds" wrote:

Jackie DeWayne Reynolds wrote:

> If you had consistent, inexpensive access to the microgravity
> environment of space, what product do you think would be most profitable
> from the start?

Tourism.

Best,
- Joe

Joe beat me to tourism, so I'll go with entertainment.

A dance company, say a half-dozen people. Not only do they put
out their own product, but they can be hired. Say a band wants
a bit of zero-G dance in their next music video. Well it would
be too expensive to send the band into orbit AND teach them to
dance(*) AND have them away from the touring circuit. So they
hire the Stardancers(**) to come up with that dance to their
latest song, the imagery is sent down, the band records their
part on the ground and the editing is also done on Earth.

Ultimate Fighting championship... IN ORBIT! Pay-per-view.
Three-D ball games.
Weightless gymnastics.

Of course, Joe's tourists can watch these event live and in
person... for an additional price.

Oh, and how about getting Jackie Chan into weightlessness
before he dies or retires? Being able to market an action
film with "Jackie Chan Does All His Own Stunts... IN SPACE!!"
would sell a lot of tickets.

(*) They may be great dancers, poor, or mediocre. But to
teach them to do it sans weight would take time, and time
is money.

(**) Yes, that's a Spider and Jeanne Robinson ref.

Zero G, pastries! I always believed it would be something rather mundane, like ore, or Golf balls that been sent to orbit and then sold to golfers as a novelty. I know that NASA astronauts taken up patches a and mission pins to sell when they returned to Earth, but I get your meaning, something that is truly manufactured in space, and sold her on Earth, a true space commodity. Who's to say everything is so up in the air right now, given the world's economy...
I would hope it is something ambitious, such as space mining, hotels or condos in space.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Jackie DeWayne Reynolds" wrote:

There has been a lot of talk of making drugs in Space.
What if it turned out that you could make drugs in Space?
In this case, though, I'm talking about the kind of drugs
that some people take for spiritual reasons, and others
take for fun. We'll call the first kind (drugs to treat
or cure disease) "drugs(1)" and the other kind (drugs for
spiritual and/or recreational use) we will call "drugs(2)"
(recognizing of course that there could be considerable
overlap).

I'm not chemist enough to make any solid predictions, but
it seems to me that if there are new drugs(1) which would
benefit from zero-G manufacture, there are probably new
drugs(2) which could as well.

Again, I can't predict exactly what new drugs(2) might be
invented, but for the sake of speculation, consider:

something like MDMA (ecstasy), only without the jaw
clenching and it doesn't matter how frequently you use
it, it always has the same effect;

a series of LSD-like entheogens, but each produces a
specific type of synesthesia (one causes you to smell
sounds, another to hear colors, another to see different
letters in different colors, etc.);

a substance which, for a few hours, makes you into an
autistic savant, with all the abilities (but also
disabilities) of a real-life Rain Man.

The social and economic impact could be huge. Also,
consider if a drug(2) was also a drug(1). Suppose it were
a cure for panic disorder or post traumatic stress
disorder, or a powerful treatment for autism or
schizophrenia, but in slightly larger doses was like the
"space acid" or "space ecstasy" described above. Now what?