Space Business Podcast #117 - Jessica Frick, Stanford XLab, In-Space Manufacturing of Advanced Materials

In-space manufacturing is what we are discussing in this episode, and we have a really cool and qualified guest: Jessica Frick is a researcher at Stanford’s XLab, the extreme environment microsystems lab. They recently held a workshop on semiconductor manufacturing in microgravity, just published a white paper about it (linked below), and are now setting up an institute focused on manufacturing advanced materials in microgravity. Enjoy!

The Institute for In-Space Manufacturing of Advanced Materials

https://rb.gy/b4661j

White paper: Semiconductor Manufacturing in Low-Earth Orbit for Terrestrial Use

https://osf.io/preprints/osf/d6ar4

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The Space Business Podcast is sponsored by NanoAvionics.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:20 Intro to XLab & Jessica
4:37 Jessica's origin story & motivation
8:54 Semiconductor manufacturing primer
14:15 In-space manufacturing for Earth
15:58 Which part of semi manufacturing makes sense to do in space
17:30 Advantages of microgravity 
18:50 Could it be done on Earth?
20:25 Advantages of microgravity (cont'd)
26:20 Semiconductor materials besides silicon
28:50 Why larger crystals are better
35:45 Why now?
38:45 Safety & astronaut intervention
40:30 Microgravity platforms besides the ISS
41:40 Importance of subject matter expertise
45:00 Origin of the idea for the new institute
54:55 Current ISS equipment
55:55 The Institute for In-Space Manufacturing of Advanced Materials
1:02:00 How to get involved
1:04:25 Sci-fi