I'm only YouTube-level informed on how silicon manufacturing works, but something that is, perhaps intentionally, not made clear to someone unfamiliar with the field is that this is not manufacturing chips in space. This is to grow the crystals only, the very first step in silicon chip manufacturing. This is how you get the ingot, then you slice it to get the wafers upon which the chips are built. The reason you would even consider doing it in space in the first place is because, on Earth, gravity and other forces are stronger and result in lower-purity crystals. Basically, what I'm getting at, is that I believe this is pretty much a glorified oven. Moving the entire manufacturing process in space wouldn't make sense, as I don't think the benefits to other steps of the process like CVD would outweigh the insane costs of sending things into orbit.

“I've noticed the pattern of big technical ideas. They’re obvious in hindsight. They cost money early.” ~

“What’s worked for me is a rough three-question filter,” Moxley continues,

“What assumption would be most easily disproven if it’s false?” “What

Is it something that can be cheaply verified in weeks, not months?

“Who would notice if this quietly failed?”

When I don’t skip this, what ends up happening is that I am endorsing the wrong thing. When I do, good ideas also die prematurely.

What the others do, curious to see.

Do you write out assumptions or is it an informal process?

How early do you bring outsiders to poke holes?

Any heuristics for distinguishing between "hard but right" and "just hard"?

Examples always appreciated. Failures too.

One thing that is unclear to me from the article:

Is the idea that it will manufacture all of these chips and then both the 'factory' and the resulting materials will return from space, or that the factory would stay in orbit and send materials back?