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Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by sushibowl on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @06:58AM (#38262201)
There's a paper on the subject here: https://osf.io/d6ar4/

Seems like the primary benefit comes to silicon wafer manufacturing. Growing pure silicon crystal is much easier to do in a microgravity, vacuum environment:

> The study reported that for semiconductor crystals processed in LEO compared to terrestrial samples, more than 80 percent improved in either one or a combination of structure, uniformity, reduction of defects, and/or electrical and optical properties–and some by orders of magnitude

For actual device manufacturing, there are potential benefits as well, but this is less well researched area (possibly as a result of the difficulty of getting advanced IC manufacturing equipment into earth orbit).

Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by adgjlsfhk1 on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @11:14AM (#38265188)
I do somewhat doubt that the economics would work out. Silicon wafers are expensive, but I'm not sure if the price is currently higher than that of launching a bunch of sand to low earth orbit.
Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by kiba on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @12:00PM (#38266022)
You wouldn't launch sands to LEO, but the equipment used for bootstrapping a mining operation on the moon or asteroid.
Re:Starship will attempt a launch this weekend by pixl97 on Tuesday November 14, 2023 @01:05PM (#38267029)
I think the point is you'd be able to build products in space that you cannot build on Earth for any cost currently.