vacuum) should be achievable. New production techniques, especially suitable to machines without people around, will be possible. This is the direction in which terrestrial industry is evolving. Completely new C + C + C (Fig. 1) means of production will evolve and grow quickly. It will be possible to manipulate far greater quantities and types of mass in space than on Earth. NASA is exploring a subset of the scientifically novel matter/processing combinations. The expectation is that new phenomena will be observed and eventually evolve through the long route of commercialization in the highly competitive terrestrial market (81). Success in the high technology market could result in major profits as cash flows of high $/kg products increase (Figs. 5 and 6). Development of high technology products will proceed much faster if the laboratories and people are permanently in space as part of a developing space economy. Skill ranks above these other factors. The finest aggressive human minds will be drawn to these new challenges. The U.S. can cultivate growing space skills as the Germans did in chemistry during the late 1800s or the Japanese are now doing in electronics, automation and robotics. It is reasonable to develop state of the art telepresence and robotic devices for early use in space. Cost savings and added capabilities should justify the expense. These technologies could be introduced directly into the United States economy as microelectronic systems become continuously more powerful. Such projects are at the center of the challenges to our national industrial productivity. Rockets were the first portal to space. Rockets can emplace and support the second portal — the electronic/robotic systems of manipulation, growth and production (82,83). Such systems, possibly placed in space and on the moon under government sponsorship, would permit small, highly innovative groups (university, industry, government) to enter the space program from Earth and build from space back toward the Earth. Conceivably, small entrepreneural groups (84) could distill the essentials of our new technologies and capabilities into working and growing systems which would start the next Kondratieff cycle (39). The reader is encouraged to make his or her own estimate of a reasonable overall growth rate. The right-hand curve in Fig. 2 assumes a 20% growth rate starting in 1990 with 5,000 tons of equipment in LEO, cis-lunar space, and on the moon. The equation of “space” Demandite growth is dA//dr (tons/year) = 1000 exp(0.2(T(years A.D.)—1900)) (2) A processing rate of one million tons per year (or 31.7 kg/s) is reached by 2024 for this model. This is the general production range necessary to install planetary scale power systems as discussed in Sec. 5. Growth is extremely potent (85a). We feel this growth model is conservative. Others have proposed far higher rates of removal of lunar soils by the year 2000 (17, 23, 27, 31, 70). It is possible to begin modelling industrial growth in space (31k, 1, 85a, b). The possibilities of industrial growth off Earth should be studied from basic principals (physical, economic, engineering) as is done by the microelectronics industry. This approach toward development has paid off in that industry. It is useful to remember the size of the space program compared to the national industrial economy (Fig. 4). In 1964 NASA with a R&D budget of 6.4 B$ directly influenced half the national R&D. In 1981 the national R&D exceeded 79 B$ (38), whereas NASA's budget, even in current dollars, has decreased. There are immense pools of knowledge and expertise outside of NASA which can be directly applied to developing industry off Earth. A reasonable fraction of these skills can be attracted
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