As data collection in space becomes an economic reality, it is rapidly found that satellites can produce prodigious quantities of data. A single advanced earth resources satellite, for example, might produce as much as 10 bits of data per second. Clearly, no human will ever examine all of the available data. Thus it is reasonable to expect a substantial amount of space-based data processing in order to reduce these data to an informational level upon which decisions can be based. Space-based data processing in large (by current standards) computers, co-located with the data collection sensors in space, thus enabling the communications link with earth to carry minimal amounts of processed data, is likely. An intriguing and totally unpredictable area of space activity is space-based manufacturing. Space, of course, offers a unique environment including high vacuum and zero gravity which should be of considerable benefit to particular manufacturing processes. The unfortunate fact at this time is that since this environment has heretofore not been available to the private sector, the technology for using it has not been developed. As a result, to date, NASA and others have studied a variety of products that might potentially be manufactured in space and found that indeed there may be benefits in doing so. Unfortunately there is a considerable time lag between today and the date at which commercial spacebased manufacturing facilities will be available to the private sector. Thus the principal conclusion to which one might arrive is that there are many potential products that could be beneficially manufacturered in space, but none of them are the products that have been examined to date, nor are they products that one would choose to manufacture in space based upon what is known today. Accordingly the annual expenditures on space-based manufacturing is highly uncertain at this time. Conceivably they could be as low as a fraction of a percent or as high as possibly 10 percent of the gross national product, say a range of $10 billion to $500 billion per year.
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