Does it get more inspirational than this?
Imagine a giant floating laboratory, bigger than a football field, zooming around Earth every 90 minutes. That's the International Space Station (ISS). It has flourished into a bustling factory for groundbreaking medical research that can’t be conducted on Earth.
Researchers aboard the ISS successfully 3D printed the first human knee meniscus (!) last year. Redwire (public: RDW), which owns the BioFabrication lab on the ISS, then sent the meniscus back to Earth aboard a SpaceX rocket.
Why do this in space? In a word, microgravity. Try to make a soft, squishy organ like a human liver on earth. It'll collapse under its own weight like a failed soufflé. No problem in space, where everything is near-weightless.
Right now, 250 miles above our heads, innovation specialists at Airbus are growing mini hearts, livers, and kidneys in space.
Need a new liver? In the not-too-distant future, we'll upload your unique cell samples, use them to print a perfect match in space, and then gently ship your new liver back to Earth.
Microgravity is a game changer for drug development too. Drug particles made on Earth often end up like mixed nuts, all different shapes and sizes. In microgravity, drug molecules can be formed like perfectly round marbles.
For cancer patients, this isn't just a fun fact. Better drugs are life-changing. They’re the difference between spending hours hooked up to an IV drip vs. swallowing a space-made pill at home.
Most major pharma companies already make drugs on the ISS. Last year, the floating lab hosted 500 projects. Merck tested Keytruda in space, a cancer immunotherapy that’s now one of the world’s best-selling drugs.
Progress is happening here fast. Startup Varda (private) recently launched the world's first space-based drug factory. Varda’s capsule hitched a ride on a SpaceX rocket, made some pills in orbit, and then parachuted back to Earth.
Notice every story above involves SpaceX. SpaceX has made the new space economy possible by reducing the cost of rocket launches by 98%.
Imagine if every time you flew, the airline had to build a new plane? Flying from London to NYC would cost $1 million. That's how reaching space used to work.
SpaceX changed the game by pioneering reusable rockets that land themselves after launch, ready for the next trip. In 2000, launching something into space cost as much as $73,000/kg. SpaceX slashed this by 98% to $1,200/kg. Musk is targeting $10/kg!
Don’t underestimate the impact of reducing costs. It’s often how new industries are born. Varda, for example, was never a viable business because it would’ve cost $20 million+ to send its 660lb mini drug factory into orbit 20 years ago. SpaceX delivered it into space for less than $2 million.
Imagine all the Vardas that will be built because we can now get to space for cheap. The iPhone gave us Uber, Netflix, and Facebook. What trillion-dollar ideas will cheap space travel spawn?
SpaceX is essentially running a cosmic taxi. It has launched 11 rockets in the past month alone. Booking a trip to orbit is almost as easy as preordering an Uber.
Seriously. Try it. Visit SpaceX's website, type in the weight of your “parcel” and when you want to send it. You’ll get an instant quote. I see the future.
Thanks to SpaceX, more objects reached space in the past two years than in all of previous history. SpaceX accounts for 95%+ of these launches.
