What Are We Replacing the ISS With? With Ariel Ekblaw
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Quick Read
Summary
Takeaways
- ❖The ISS will be decommissioned by 2030-2031, with parts potentially integrated into new commercial stations before deorbiting.
- ❖New space stations will feature self-assembling, modular designs, inspired by Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, optimizing volume for a given surface area.
- ❖Magnets facilitate the self-assembly of flat-packed 'tiles' into spherical structures, allowing for easy repair and modification.
- ❖Artificial gravity is a future goal, with designs for spinning cylindrical habitats to mitigate bone and muscle loss.
- ❖Unique zero-gravity conditions enable manufacturing processes impossible on Earth, such as perfect ball bearings and advanced tissue engineering (e.g., artificial retinas).
- ❖Space-based research has already improved Earth-bound pharmaceuticals, like Merck's Keytruda, by optimizing crystallization in microgravity.
- ❖Launch costs to LEO have plummeted from $10,000/pound to an estimated $200/kilogram with Starship, making commercial space economically viable.
- ❖Decentralized, modular designs can address challenges like heat dissipation for AI data centers in space and provide resilience against space junk.
- ❖Space-based solar power, beaming energy via infrared to Earth, is being explored as a clean energy solution, with companies like Overview Energy signing deals with Meta.
Insights
1Modular, Self-Assembling Space Stations
The next generation of space architecture will move beyond monolithic modules, utilizing flat-packed 'tiles' that self-assemble into large, spherical 'buckyball' structures using magnets. This design allows for greater volume, easier repair by swapping damaged tiles, and the ability to build structures far larger than current rocket payload capacities allow.
Ariel Ekblaw describes packing tiles flat in a rocket, popping them out like a 'Pez dispenser,' and using magnets for self-assembly into a sphere, optimizing for volume. This approach is inspired by Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes.
2Unique Zero-Gravity Manufacturing for Biotech and Pharma
The absence of convection and sedimentation in microgravity enables the creation of materials and biological structures with unparalleled precision. This is critical for advanced tissue engineering, such as growing artificial retinas with perfect cell matrices, and for optimizing drug crystallization to improve pharmaceutical delivery and patient quality of life.
Ekblaw cites Lam Division's artificial retinas (200 delicate protein layers without sagging) and Merck's Keytruda cancer drug, which, after space-based crystallization studies, transitioned from an IV to a shot, significantly improving patient experience.
3Artificial Gravity for Long-Term Human Habitation
Future space habitats will incorporate artificial gravity through rotation to counter the detrimental effects of zero-G on human physiology (bone and muscle loss). Current research focuses on spinning cylindrical modules arranged in a ring to provide consistent gravity levels within living spaces, making long-duration space travel and colonization more feasible.
Aurelia Institute has released a paper on artificial gravity, proposing a 'xylem'-like structure of spinning cylinders. The goal is to achieve artificial gravity within 10 years, addressing the challenges of gravity gradients within habitats.
4Dramatic Reduction in Space Launch Costs
The cost of launching payloads to low Earth orbit has drastically decreased due to advancements like reusable rocket boosters. This cost reduction is a primary driver for the commercialization of space, making previously uneconomical ventures, such as orbital manufacturing and space-based services, financially viable.
The cost to orbit has dropped from $10,000/pound to about $1,500/kilogram, with projections of $200/kilogram with Starship. Ekblaw compares this to FedEx costs, highlighting an 'incredible inflection point' in the space industry.
5NASA's Role in Seeding Commercial Space
NASA is actively transitioning from being the sole operator to a facilitator, using public-private partnerships to stimulate commercial space development. By contracting private companies for services like crew and cargo transport (e.g., SpaceX) and lunar payload services (CLPS), NASA offloads operational burdens and enables private sector growth, while maintaining high safety standards.
Ekblaw explains that NASA's model with SpaceX for ISS resupply enabled SpaceX's growth. This 'playbook' is now being applied to lunar missions (Artemis/CLPS), freeing NASA to focus on deep space science that lacks commercial ROI.
Bottom Line
Decentralized modular architecture can enable massive space structures (e.g., four football fields in size) that are resilient to space junk, by allowing individual 'tiles' to be moved or replaced, and can hyper-localize energy and heat management for AI data centers.
This design paradigm fundamentally changes how large-scale space infrastructure is conceived and built, making previously impossible scales achievable and addressing critical operational challenges like debris impact and thermal control for power-intensive applications.
Develop specialized modular components for power generation, thermal management, and structural integrity that can integrate into these decentralized systems, or create advanced robotics for automated module replacement and maintenance.
Space-based solar power using infrared (IR) beams offers a non-weaponized, clean energy solution for Earth, capable of powering terrestrial infrastructure like AI data centers, by shining IR onto existing photovoltaic arrays.
This technology provides a continuous, clean energy source that bypasses atmospheric absorption issues of visible light (though still affected by clouds for IR) and avoids the regulatory and safety concerns of microwave beaming, offering a viable path to large-scale renewable energy from space.
Invest in IR beaming technology, develop advanced space-based solar panel arrays optimized for IR conversion, or create ground-based receiving infrastructure that efficiently converts beamed IR into usable electricity, especially in clear-sky regions.
The concept of 'Pac-Man for space' involves self-destructing objects that collect space debris, slow down due to increased drag, and then deorbit and burn up, providing a sustainable solution for space junk remediation.
This offers a proactive and scalable approach to managing the growing problem of orbital debris, which threatens operational satellites and future space missions, ensuring the long-term viability of space activities.
Develop and deploy specialized 'debris collection' satellites using this principle, focusing on efficient capture mechanisms, autonomous navigation for debris avoidance, and controlled deorbiting systems.
Opportunities
Self-Assembling Modular Space Habitats (Tesserae)
Develop and commercialize modular, flat-packed 'tiles' that use magnetic self-assembly to form large, reconfigurable spherical habitats in orbit. These habitats would serve as orbital bio-labs and eventually artificial gravity stations.
Orbital Bio-Labs for Advanced Manufacturing
Establish and operate commercial space stations dedicated to zero-gravity biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Focus on products impossible or highly inefficient to produce on Earth, such as artificial retinas, optimized drug crystallizations, and perfect ball bearings.
Space-Based Solar Power Infrastructure
Design, build, and deploy large-scale solar panel arrays in orbit that convert sunlight into infrared energy and beam it down to Earth-based photovoltaic collectors. This provides 24/7 clean energy for terrestrial power grids and data centers.
Decentralized AI Data Centers in Space
Develop modular computing 'tiles' for space that integrate solar power, processing units, and radiators. These tiles would self-assemble into massive, decentralized AI data centers in orbit, leveraging the vacuum for efficient radiative cooling and avoiding Earth's atmospheric heat burden.
Space Debris Remediation Services ('Pac-Man for Space')
Create and operate spacecraft designed to capture and deorbit space junk. These 'Pac-Man' vehicles would collect debris, increase their drag, and then burn up in the atmosphere, offering a sustainable solution to orbital pollution.
Key Concepts
Biomimicry in Space Architecture
Designing space structures by emulating nature's self-assembly processes, like protein folding or ant colonies, to create large, complex, and resilient systems from smaller, modular units.
Feature, Not a Bug
Re-framing environmental challenges (e.g., vacuum, radiation, zero-gravity) as unique advantages for specific manufacturing or research processes that are impossible or inefficient on Earth.
Public-Private Partnership (Airmail Model)
A government agency (like NASA) seeds a market by contracting private companies for services, driving innovation and cost reduction, eventually leading to a self-sustaining commercial industry that also serves broader public needs.
Lessons
- Explore investment opportunities in emerging commercial space companies focusing on modular space architecture, in-space manufacturing, or space-based resource utilization, as launch costs continue to decrease.
- For biotech or pharmaceutical researchers, investigate how unique microgravity conditions (absence of convection/sedimentation) could optimize processes or create novel products currently impossible on Earth.
- Advocate for or participate in public-private partnerships that leverage government funding and expertise to de-risk and accelerate commercial space ventures, mirroring successful models like the airmail industry.
NASA's Commercial Space Development Playbook
**Seed the Market:** Government (NASA) identifies a strategic need (e.g., ISS resupply, lunar access) that could benefit from private sector innovation.
**Provide Contracts & Support:** NASA offers substantial contracts and technical assistance to private companies, de-risking early-stage development and fostering growth (e.g., SpaceX's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services).
**Enable Iterative Prototyping:** Allow private companies the flexibility to iterate and even fail in their development processes, which is often faster than traditional government programs (e.g., SpaceX's rocket tests).
**Transition to Commercial Services:** As the private sector matures, NASA shifts from direct operation to purchasing services from these companies, freeing up its resources for unique, non-commercial scientific exploration (e.g., deep space missions).
**Maintain Standards:** NASA continues to provide oversight and enforce high safety and quality standards, especially for human spaceflight, ensuring integrity within the commercial ecosystem.
Notable Moments
The International Space Station was deputized as a National Lab towards its end, enabling subsidized student research and proving the viability of commercial access.
This decision provided a critical bridge for academic and early commercial research in space, directly influencing the development of future commercial space stations and demonstrating a successful model for government-supported innovation.
The cost of launching a kilogram to low Earth orbit has dropped from $10,000/pound to an estimated $200/kilogram with Starship, comparable to FedEx cargo rates.
This dramatic cost reduction is the primary 'inflection point' making a wide array of commercial space industries, from manufacturing to energy, economically feasible and accessible to a broader range of participants.
Quotes
"What we think we're going to do is pack them flat in a rocket, pop them out like a little Pez dispenser. The magnets help the tiles self-assemble. The first structure is a sphere."
"What can you do uniquely in the zero-G environment that you can't do on Earth? You have no convection, so hot air is not rising, cool air is not sinking. You have no sedimentation, nothing sinking down."
"For the Keytruda, the cancer drug, they used space to do this parameter sweep with a bunch of data that would have been really hard to get on Earth. And then they figured out what it was."
"The model here is just the interplay between the needs of a government and the needs of a private enterprise."
"If you had all of your computers... put the compute that you need on an individual tile, put a solar panel that you need on that tile to get the energy you need, and on the backside is your radiator."
Q&A
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