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From: dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: spinoffs
Message-ID: <8511251310.AA17146@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Mon, 25-Nov-85 07:43:01 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8511251310.AA17146
Posted: Mon Nov 25 07:43:01 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Nov-85 06:14:51 EST
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I was interested in spinoffs, so a few years ago I sent away for one
of those (NASA) books.  It was pitiful.  The best spinoff they could point
to was ferrofluids, which are used in (among other things) magnetic disk
drives as a dust seal.  Its worth maybe $100 million, tops.

> The big advance coming now is direct manufacture in space.

I am skeptical.  There is not one product yet identified that is a good
bet for large scale space manufacturing.  What about the drugs purified
with continuous flow electrophoresis?  Don't bet on them: drugs can
be purified on earth using other techniques (for example, by affinity
chromatography in columns filled with monoclonal antibodies).  What
about perfect crystals for semiconductors?  When launch costs are
$50+/ounce that's unlikely to be economical (at least for silicon) and
we can expect continued improvements in earth-based crystal growing
techniques.  The Japanese, for example, are growing crystals in
strong magnetic fields to reduce convection.