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  • Building new things has led

  • to some of humanity's biggest leaps forward.

  • We made tools, forged new materials,

  • and learned to produce them for millions.

  • And then billions.

  • With every new innovation comes news industries,

  • new economies, new challenges.

  • And we're always looking for what comes next.

  • Three,

  • two, one.

  • SpaceX Falcon Heavy, go for launch.

  • The industrialization of space, I think,

  • will be one of the great economic booms of this century.

  • Space offers a whole new environment

  • to create things; things we can't make on Earth.

  • Gravity in general is something

  • that we all just take for granted,

  • because it's just always here; it affects everything.

  • What becomes interesting is,

  • what happens when you take that away?

  • Private companies are creating new materials,

  • 3D printing tools, even living tissue.

  • And developing the technology

  • to build entire factories in space.

  • If successful, for-profit manufacturing

  • could lead to a new gold rush,

  • launching the business of space to its next Giant Leap.

  • Elon Musk and Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos,

  • and many other industrialists, they're making big

  • investments to go up there, but there has to be a why.

  • There has to be a reason to go to space.

  • We wanna see a very robust commercial marketplace in space

  • but the other thing that we have to do

  • is we have to prove, we have to prove the industries

  • that ultimately are gonna be able to take advantage

  • of the micro-gravity environment of space.

  • In space we're opening the way to private enterprise.

  • Since the 1980s, companies have been

  • investigating the unique properties of micro-gravity,

  • yielding major breakthroughs in the areas

  • of biomedicine and advanced materials research.

  • And now some are looking to start production.

  • Manufacturing in space has at its core the following idea:

  • This extraordinary environment, with a completely different

  • set of environmental factors than the Earth,

  • can enable you to manufacture things

  • that you couldn't manufacture on Earth, that have value.

  • Our economy has historically been a value-added economy.

  • We take raw material and we turn it into steel.

  • And we sell that steel for profit.

  • Finding new ways of making things is historically

  • the makings of economic boom.

  • Three, two, one,

  • zero, ignition; liftoff.

  • In July of 2019, SpaceX's CRS-18

  • launched with over a dozen new research projects,

  • including investigations being conducted

  • by Goodyear and Adidas.

  • Both companies hope that studying their products

  • in micro-gravity, could unlock new opportunities.

  • Also aboard the mission is a biomaterial 3D printer.

  • And with it, the chance to print whole human organs.

  • Spock, B.F.F. on side four.

  • Go ahead.

  • So, you were working with DMT

  • to go ahead and get our command window up

  • a little early, correct?

  • Yes, bandwidth is available.

  • Okay, so I'm just pressing

  • where the numbers are and,

  • making sure they're turned on in sets.

  • Christina, we should be good to go hands-free now.

  • Copy with a thumbs up.

  • We do wanna start by opening up the cassette kit.

  • It's just past three a.m.,

  • and the team at Techshot is prepping

  • their initial printing run for the newly arrived

  • bio-fabrication facility, or B.F.F..

  • Fueled by coffee and the type of food

  • you might expect to find at three a.m.,

  • the team is working directly with astronauts

  • aboard the I.S.S., all from the comfort

  • of Techshot headquarters,

  • located just outside Louisville, Kentucky.

  • Now we want to double check that the smart pumps

  • are in the up position.

  • We're gonna be sliding the cassette in,

  • and we just don't wanna bump 'em with the cassette.

  • I see.

  • That looks great.

  • We are good to go ahead and put the door back on.

  • Okay, copy that.

  • We'll be able to do some printing.

  • Definitely.

  • From the outside, the B.F.F.

  • doesn't look that much different

  • to traditional 3D printers, but inside,

  • these smart pumps are being loaded with living cells.

  • And for the company, all eyes are focused

  • on the inaugural drop, paving the first biological brick

  • on the long road to printing human organs.

  • Currently there's over 113,000 people

  • on the organ donation list, and 22 people are dying

  • every day because there's not an organ available.

  • B.F.F. has that long-term potential

  • to someday maybe be able to provide some hope

  • and a cure for some of those people.

  • This is John Vellinger,

  • the CEO of Techshot, a company he co-founded

  • over 30 years ago.

  • While his latest project just succeeded

  • in its initial test prints, the B.F.F. has a long way to go

  • before it's printing anything as complex

  • as a human liver or heart.

  • Techshot is demonstrating the B.F.F. technology

  • with this current flight, and we anticipate

  • being able to print; organs and structures might be

  • five to 10 years out.

  • Bio-printers have been on Earth

  • for over a decade and can print things like ear

  • and nose cartilage that are living tissue.

  • But for complex systems like organs,

  • the difficulty has been printing the vascular networks

  • within the tissue itself.

  • Without vascular tissue to distribute the needed nutrients,

  • any printed cells would die off,

  • well before they could be used.

  • And Techshot believes that gravity

  • is a big part of the challenge.

  • So, let's just say that you want to create something

  • that has one layer of cells.

  • So then on top of that, a different layer of cells,

  • and on top of that a third layer of cells.

  • So, one way that you could do that

  • would be to just print one cell in the layer,

  • and then your second layer with another type of cell,

  • and then your third layer with another type of cell.

  • But depending on those materials,

  • over a short period time those cells may not stay

  • in those layers; they may settle out

  • and then end up combining.

  • You think of printing, if you tried to print with water,

  • here on Earth, you know what would happen.

  • It would just squirt out like out of a water gun.

  • And that is because in a gravity environment,

  • everything wants to just squirt out and wet out

  • and spread out; but in a micro-gravity environment,

  • you don't have to worry about any of that.

  • So you have a much wider range of materials

  • that you can print with.

  • To combat the effects of gravity on Earth,

  • researchers have used scaffolded structures

  • in order to support the growing cells.

  • The problem is, a lot of ways that that is accomplished

  • isn't necessarily the best for biology.

  • It can limit the types of materials that you can use,

  • and it can also limit the types of cells

  • that can really thrive in that environment.

  • In micro-gravity, you wouldn't necessarily

  • have to do that; you could have your different layers

  • or areas or sections of different types of cells

  • and put them next to each other.

  • And there are no other forces

  • that are gonna cause them to mix.

  • So you have this opportunity to be able to make

  • these small regions in three dimensions,

  • in a different type of way, and different type

  • of structure that would be very difficult

  • to do on the ground.

  • Micro-gravity-enabled bio-printing

  • still has numerous hurdles to cross

  • before it can produce a product for sale.

  • Only now that the printer is operating aboard the I.S.S.

  • can researchers begin to understand the correct materials

  • and process necessary, not only to print organs,

  • but to culture and preserve them long enough

  • to return back to Earth.

  • But all that time and research is part of Techshot's plan.

  • Techshot's business model is to be a tech engine.

  • We're generating new technologies.

  • Then if we feel like that technology has a potential,

  • commercial potential, we spin that off

  • into a different company or to a different group.

  • They liken their business

  • to Levi Strauss in the 1800s.

  • During the Gold Rush, Levi Strauss started out

  • by providing canvas material for tents and wagons.

  • And when those miners needed a more durable fabric,

  • the now iconic blue jeans were born.

  • The business model of selling pick axes

  • as opposed to going out and panning for gold,

  • really certainly applies to space.

  • And there are many companies at the component level

  • that are providing products and services

  • to launch companies, to satellite operators, to NASA.

  • One of the challenges in that business model

  • is you need a gold rush.

  • It's not clear that 3D-printed organs

  • could set off any kind of a gold rush to space.

  • So in order to stay in business,

  • Techshot needs to have other projects,

  • making sure it doesn't keep all of its eggs

  • in one satellite.

  • This is my science fair project

  • that I started in eighth grade.

  • The whole experiment was to see how the chicken embryo

  • develop in space without the presence of gravity.

  • This science project evolved

  • into the Space Shuttle project.

  • Imagine this chicken egg

  • in the back of the back of the barnyard.

  • Gravity is causing the yolk to fall

  • to the bottom of the egg.

  • Now, the hen has a natural instinct

  • of turning that egg around.

  • So therefore, the yolk will fall, go back up to the top,

  • and gravity pulls it back down to the bottom again.

  • Now, what would happen to that egg up in space?

  • The project was sponsored by Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  • In which their worldwide headquarters

  • is located in Louisville.

  • And so the engineer that I worked with, Mark Deuser,

  • he and I are the ones that decided to start Techshot,

  • and start it right here in Louisville, Kentucky.

  • We started in a motel.

  • It was just two rooms, and eventually we went

  • into four rooms of the motel.

  • And then as Techshot matured and developed,

  • and gained more projects and more opportunities,

  • then we decided, you know, we're in this for the long haul.

  • And so we built a world-class research facility here

  • that we're sitting in today.

  • And here, just across the street

  • from that first motel room, Techshot is currently working

  • on 15 active projects,

  • creating technology for NASA, the military,

  • and major pharmaceutical companies.

  • All with the goal to support researchers in micro-gravity.

  • Last year was Techshot's best year in its history.

  • I think that's reflective of the excitement

  • of the new opportunities that are out there for space.

  • And if they're lucky, one of these projects

  • could yield that catalyst of a space gold rush.

  • But they aren't alone in this race.

  • Another company, located in Silicon Valley,

  • views making things as space as core to their mission,

  • even down to their name.

  • This is fiber-optic cable.

  • It works because the fiber reflects light

  • over and over inside the structure.

  • And even if you bend it,

  • the light still comes through the other end.

  • But in this application, it's nothing more

  • than a modern-looking lava lamp.

  • The best fiber-optic cable is being used

  • to transmit data all over the world.

  • In fact, undersea cables carry 99%

  • of all the data that crosses oceans.

  • Optical fiber, usually made from silica,

  • is important because it can transmit data

  • incredibly quickly over a long distance,

  • before needing to have its signal amplified.

  • But research done by the U.S. Air Force in the 1990s

  • proved that it would be possible to produce a fiber

  • known as ZBLAN, that could far exceed

  • traditional silica fiber.

  • The only catch: It needs to be made in micro-gravity.

  • ZBLAN is an optical glass that has a transmission window

  • that's about five times wider than traditional silica glass.

  • And it has a signal loss that's 10-100 times better

  • than traditional silica glass.

  • This is Andrew Rush,

  • the CEO of Made In Space, a company with a mission

  • to create a new industrial foothold in space.

  • And it sees ZBLAN as potentially the first material

  • that can be made in space and sold on Earth.

  • So, this is a preform of ZBLAN.

  • It extracts out as this nice dog-bone cylinder.

  • And then it gets inserted into a furnace.

  • This gets thinner and thinner; thinner than the width

  • of your own hair, and then you start pulling that.

  • So if everything works out, you get a spool like this,

  • from our earlier test runs.

  • Basically looks like fishing line.

  • While it is possible to produce ZBLAN on Earth,

  • it's nowhere near the potential

  • of what you can produce in micro-gravity.

  • Earth-manufactured ZBLAN suffers from too many crystals

  • in the material, and basically what happens is when light

  • or power goes through these crystal domains,

  • they reduce each time, creating a power loss

  • throughout the length of fiber you're going through.

  • Micro-gravity suppresses these formations.

  • And doing so creates more of a mono-crystalline structure,

  • so you don't have all these domain drops.

  • And you have less of a power drop over that length of fiber.

  • You know, you can go trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific

  • without having repeaters in the lines,

  • like traditional fiber lines do today.

  • If you can imagine providing five,

  • 10, 15 times more bandwidth down the same line of fiber

  • by using ZBLAN instead of silica,

  • you begin to scratch the surface

  • of the economic potential of ZBLAN.

  • They estimate that a kilogram of ZBLAN

  • could sell for 10s, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars

  • and that high price per kilogram is important

  • when it comes to space manufacturing.

  • Historically a barrier to doing a lot

  • of commercial activity in space has been

  • that it costs so much money to get to space,

  • do things, and then come back.

  • It can literally cost 10s of thousands of dollars

  • a kilogram to launch, operate, and return.

  • And that's why things like ZBLAN are so attractive,

  • because we can sustainably sell them

  • for 10s of thousands of dollars a kilogram.

  • Meaning at some point,

  • whole factories could be created in space.

  • Receiving raw material from the ground

  • and shipping micro-gravity-enabled ZBLAN back to Earth.

  • But the problem is, it's all still theoretical.

  • Made In Space has been working on ZBLAN for over four years

  • and has flown four missions

  • to test their manufacturing techniques,

  • with more planned in the future.

  • But they still expect to be a few years away

  • from producing a product that could be sold on Earth,

  • let alone scaling that to larger industries.

  • It's very interesting and a little counter-intuitive.

  • The most successful companies in space

  • are the companies that consistently say,

  • "How can I do this on Earth?"

  • There have been many products that started

  • with the vision of actually manufacturing in space,

  • and ended up with a discovery phase in space

  • and manufacturing on Earth.

  • And that's good news for consumers,

  • that's good news for the end users of those products,

  • because that reduces cost.

  • You don't build your manufacturing plant

  • on the most expensive real estate

  • you can possibly get ahold of.

  • You build your manufacturing plant

  • where you can manufacture economically.

  • For Made In Space, though,

  • discovering the first product

  • that can truly be made in space,

  • is more than just profit and loss.

  • The establishment of space-manufactured ZBLAN

  • as a product line,

  • is core to our vision.

  • That's the industrialization of space right there.

  • That's the Netscape moment

  • of low-earth-orbit commercialization.

  • If in our research and development for ZBLAN,

  • say we found ways of improving ZBLAN

  • that we could actually apply terrestrially,

  • like apply in a gravity field,

  • we would be excited about that.

  • For us, we'd take the profits from that,

  • and pile that back in, and do more cool space stuff.

  • And while the company is also investigating

  • other materials like ZBLAN that can be produced in space,

  • they've already laid the groundwork for a whole new way

  • of thinking about in-space manufacturing.

  • And they call it Archinaut.

  • Archinaut is one of many steps

  • toward those broader visions.

  • Archinaut is more of a capability than a thing.

  • The capability can enable virtually

  • anything you can think of in terms of structures in space.

  • You can build large things, small things that are optimized,

  • it doesn't really matter.

  • Archinaut blends robotic manufacturing

  • with 3D printing, allowing it to create

  • and assemble products in space.

  • Meaning, instead of flying something like,

  • say a satellite to space, you could create them there.

  • But before Made In Space can use Archinaut

  • as an in-space factory, it needs to turn

  • its vision into a sustainable business.

  • There is no shortage in space

  • of visionaries. What I really wanna

  • try to achieve here is to make Mars seem possible.

  • The visionaries that we are seeing succeed,

  • are the visionaries that attach their vision

  • to an incremental pathway.

  • We've been very fortunate to work closely with NASA

  • for a number of years in developing

  • gravity-independent manufacturing technologies.

  • And the first one of those technologies

  • that we really tackled was 3D printing.

  • International Space Station

  • has its own 3D printer, and look at this,

  • astronauts created the first object to be made with it.

  • It's a white printer part.

  • The first print that we did

  • was a plate for the printer.

  • It said NASA and it said Made In Space on it.

  • Is it fair to say the first thing

  • you made in space was marketing material?

  • I mean,

  • we actually kinda joked that the first thing we did

  • was demonstrate that you could make

  • self-repairing robots in space.

  • To date, Made In Space has created

  • over 200 objects aboard the I.S.S..

  • And with its second printer,

  • named the Additive Manufacturing Facility,

  • they were able to not only prove their technology,

  • but turn it into a business.

  • We've struck kind of an interesting deal with them,

  • where we actually retained ownership of the device,

  • and actually operated it as a service.

  • And printed parts for NASA, for other individuals,

  • for companies, for schools.

  • So, really starting to build on it's this machine shop

  • in space kind of business model.

  • The approach that we've taken at Made In Space

  • has been to have these really great, this really inspiring,

  • bit vision, but we take that big vision

  • and we decompose that into digestible chunks.

  • Like, steps along that path toward these fantastic futures.

  • And that first incremental step

  • for Archinaut is to change how we think

  • about manufacturing satellites.

  • Archinaut One project is a free-flying satellite,

  • which will manufacture 10-meter booms.

  • And those 10-meter booms will have solar arrays

  • on them which allow a small sat to manufacture

  • on the order of about a kilowatt of power.

  • The Archinaut One mission will launch in 2022.

  • It's part of a public/private partnership with NASA.

  • And the project aims to reduce the cost

  • of putting satellites into orbit.

  • While satellites have been getting smaller,

  • if you need a satellite that'll require lots of power,

  • you'll most likely need a massive solar array.

  • But large arrays are difficult to fit into rocket payloads,

  • the so-called tyranny of the fairing.

  • And it gets expensive.

  • One way around this problem was to spend heavily

  • on engineers to devise solutions

  • for folding arrays into compact configurations.

  • Then, deploy at their full size once in space.

  • But all that work and extra weight on a rocket

  • can add tens if not hundreds of millions

  • of dollars to a launch cost.

  • Archinaut gives satellite-makers a new option:

  • Include a 3D printer and robotic arm

  • onto their existing satellites, and let Archinaut

  • build their very large solar arrays in space.

  • This could reduce the costs of getting power-hungry

  • satellites into orbit, and potentially open up

  • whole new industries to space.

  • Probably the most significant factor

  • for the financial success of a space-based

  • or space-related business, is economies of scale.

  • The more activity there is, the more feasible it is.

  • Both Made In Space and NASA

  • hopes that Archinaut will help reduce the cost

  • of doing business in space.

  • But it's still unclear whether larger

  • and cheaper solar arrays is the answer

  • to finding scale in production.

  • A successful strategy for manufacturing in space

  • is to demonstrate capabilities,

  • and to have adaptable capabilities

  • that can serve different customers.

  • When you combine that robotic assembly

  • and additive manufacturing, it really opens the door

  • for customization for clients.

  • Folks may say, hey, I actually don't need that much power

  • because of my mission, but I need a big antennae.

  • Or, I need a large radiator.

  • Archinaut, because it's general,

  • means that I can provide those services

  • quickly, and at low cost.

  • We hope that folks see what we're doing

  • and are inspired by it, and say,

  • hey, this is what I need.

  • So yeah, it'd be great if somebody came to us

  • and said, "This is the thing that we wanna make."

  • And we're like, oh my gosh,

  • that's the killer app.

  • The hope for Archinaut,

  • just like with ZBLAN and organ printing,

  • is that one of these businesses can be that spark

  • for space industrialization.

  • I think, once people see the potential of micro-gravity,

  • I think a lot more people, a lot more commercial entities

  • will get involved in space research.

  • Because I think it is such a unique environment,

  • that that different way of thinking leads to innovation.

  • And so I think you see so much excitement

  • and so much interest because the potential

  • to come up with new products, new innovations, is real.

  • The ability to manufacture in space

  • means that we break the tyranny of the launch fairing.

  • And we can now make structures that are really enormous.

  • Make structures that are on the size and scale

  • of things that we're comfortable with

  • and we interact with on Earth on a consistent basis,

  • you know, larger buildings, multi-story buildings.

  • Nothing like that exists in space.

  • But we need to be able to make structures

  • and spacecraft and habitats that are that size,

  • if we are really to sustainably move into space,

  • move into low-Earth orbit and beyond.

  • And as industry enters low-Earth orbit,

  • we'll begin to explore the next financial future.

  • The Moon, Mars, even asteroids,

  • contain potentially invaluable resources.

  • On the next Giant Leap, we'll explore the private companies

  • developing the technology needed for off-world mining.

  • But in order for it to become a business,

  • it'll take another Giant Leap.

Building new things has led

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微小重力がすべてのものの作り方を変える (Microgravity Will Change How We Make Everything)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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