Manufacturing in Space?

 Space.com:

...

Space, Western said, naturally provides an environment that enables high-tech manufacturing without complex, power-hungry equipment.

"Space provides a much, much better manufacturing baseline for almost any material," Western said. "Going into space enables about a billion new alloy combinations through a combination of microgravity, high-purity vacuum (without the need for multistage pumps), and accessing extremes of temperature of plus to minus 260 degrees Celsius [plus 500 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 436 degrees Fahrenheit] just depending on which way your platform is orientated."

That by itself, Western said, decreases the energy consumption of in-space manufacturing compared to facilities on Earth. The products manufactured in space, he said, could offer further carbon savings through their improved efficiency and performance.

"The applications that we're focused on at Space Forge are really in the advanced material sphere," Western said. "And that allows us to develop new types of semiconductors, new types of composites that can leapfrog the state of the art about 100 times in terms of performance through improvements in thermal capacity and power handling."
...

We will have to see whether the products of space manufacturing would justify the cost.  It does sound like it would lead to additional business for Musk's Space X. 

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