Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 505
guide, direct and implement space manufacturing operations. The purpose of this study
was to examine the feasibility of establishing commercial space manufacturing operations,
and thus assess the potential participation of commercial industry. This study analysis was
divided into two phases. Phase I assessed the technical feasibility along with a preliminary
economic evaluation; Phase II assessed the commercial and business aspects of implementing
commercial space manufacturing.
The approach taken was to use a model product to assess the technical and economic
feasibility of commercial space manufacturing. The principal data to aid the selection of a
model product were the experimental results of space processing experiments on Skylab.
Some of the most promising experimental results were in the area of crystal growth, such
as uniform distribution of dopant elements(1) and crystal facets which were flat within a
few hundred Angstroms(2). Because of these potential improvements, crystal processing
was selected for further investigation. Since the most widely used crystal material is semiconductor
silicon, and technical and economic data were available as a basis for study, it
was selected as our candidate material. One economic consideration that led to silicon
selection as a model product was that new products have a better chance of success if they
are entering existing, growing markets(3) and silicon was found to be in a growing market.
With the selection of a model product for analysis, the following steps were found to
be necessary in formulating an implementation plan for a space-manufactured product:
• Market analysis for system sizing } Phase I
• Technical evaluation and plant design } Phase I
• Product value assessment relative to earth product } Phase I
• Financial analysis for commercial operations } Phase II
• Risk assessment } Phase II
• Adjust financial returns for risk } Phase II
• Organizational evaluation } Phase II
A nominal market analysis was completed during the Phase I study and is updated for
this Phase II analysis. Evaluation of the first three steps were reported in detail in the
Phase I final report and will only be summarized here for background information.
[2] 2.0 MARKET ANALYSIS
In order to determine how the value and market for space produced silicon could
best be developed, an analysis of the semiconductor market was undertaken to both
understand and identify market characteristics. These characteristics included type and
extent of market segmentation, trends, product life cycle, and competition.
The market analysis results are illustrated by the projected world market for semiconductor
devices as shown in Figure 1. This market is composed of discrete devices and
integrated circuits, is currently about $5B, and is growing at an annual rate of 11%. Single
crystal silicon for use in integrated circuits requires extremely high quality material in
terms of purity and structure. The damaging effect of defects increases with circuit size
and is greatest for large scale integrated circuits (LSI). These LSI would be a candidate
application for space processed silicon if the promising experimental results could be realized
in a developed process.
Crystal manufacturers estimate silicon material sales to be about 8% of device sales;
therefore, materials sales [original placement of Figure 1] for LSI, the fastest growing
market segment, is projected to be about $0.64B annually by 1985. Ten percent of the LSI
segment of the 1985 market was set as a goal. Since there are approximately 10 companies
currently producing single crystal silicon, and the market is growing at an 11% rate, this
10% market capture was felt to be a reasonable, conservative objective. This 10% market
set our initial production rate which was used to size the overall production system. . . .