Feb 17 1980
From The Space Library
The General Accounting Office (GAO) warned that the United States was in danger of losing its space technology lead unless it invested more in the new area of space manufacturing. On Earth, gas bubbles rise in a liquid, heavy particles and dense metals settle at the bottom of a solution, and heated fluids swirl in random and unpredictable directions, all because of gravity. The weightlessness of space permits formation of composite materials and facilitates both separation and synthesis.
The NY Times reported a GAO statement that the United States should be spending two to three times the $20 million in NASA's current budget, just to maintain parity with other nations such as the Soviet Union, Japan, and the 11 European members of ESA. GAO said that industrialists believed being "first to market" with new products would give a firm the best chance of remaining competitive. GAO predicted that by the end of the century orbiting factories would be producing new or better metals and alloys, perfect crystals, composite materials, glass, semiconductors, and high-purity chemicals, medicines, and vaccines that cannot be made on Earth. If the United States is to exploit this new field, the GAO said, its government must work out a plan with private industry, and both must be prepared for financial risks. (NY Times, Feb 17/80, 59)
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