§ 4.9 Bootstrapping
"Bootstrapping" means sending up a seed industry into space which produces the bigger industrial complex, which in turn produces products.
The structural mass of the space manufacturing facility and much of the industry will be produced from asteroidal and lunar materials by a relatively small initial seed complex. Even relatively conservative scenarios have more than 90% of the SMF made from asteroidal and lunar materials after just a few years of production.
The SMF will make both products and more SMF facilities.
A typical industry can put out hundreds to thousands of times its own mass in products each year.
In another sense, it will be much like computers being used to design and produce better computers, which in turn assist in further design and production of more and better computers.
As we learn to work in the space environment, those who go first and get the patents could achieve runaway success over those who just play wait-and-see.
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