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Loading contentThe next era of spaceflight will not launch everything from Earth. It will mine water on the Moon, make oxygen on Mars, print parts in orbit, and build the depots, habitats, and power stations of an economy in space. This encyclopedia maps that future — with each technology's real maturity stated plainly.
The domains of building in space — resource utilisation, manufacturing, infrastructure, power, and logistics.
5 entriesLiving off the land — extracting water, oxygen, metals, and propellant from the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.
5 entriesMaking and building in space — 3D printing, in-space assembly, servicing, and autonomous construction.
4 entriesThe facilities of a spacefaring economy — depots, habitats, power stations, tugs, and megastructure concepts.
12 entriesUsing the materials found on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids — water ice, regolith, and metals — instead of launching everything from Earth. ISRU is the key to affordable, sustained exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
Making and assembling things in space — 3D-printing parts on a station, building large structures on orbit, and servicing spacecraft — rather than launching everything fully formed inside a rocket fairing.
The persistent facilities that a spacefaring economy needs — propellant depots, habitats, and surface bases — and the megastructure concepts, from space elevators to mass drivers, that would transform access to space.
Generating power in space and beaming it where it is needed — from the arrays that power a station to the concept of space solar-power satellites that would collect sunlight in orbit and send it to Earth.
Moving cargo and spacecraft around in space — orbital tugs, in-space refuelling, and reusable transfer vehicles — the transport layer of an in-space economy.
Each domain, ISRU technique, manufacturing process, and infrastructure system is a first-class knowledge-graph entity resolved through the Scientific Data Engine, reusing the Moon, Mars, the metal asteroids, the commercial and inflatable space stations, the propellants, and the components already in the graph. Curated from NASA and ESA. Technology maturity is stated honestly — from operational to purely theoretical — and nothing is fabricated. See source quality.