January 23, 2024

Microgravity Is Special: Computer Chips and Cancer Treatments May Soon Be Made There. | Jana Stoudemire (Director of In-Space Manufacturing, Axiom Space)

25 minutes

** Please take this three-minute survey to help us create more great Crafted episodes. http://tinyurl.com/craftedsurvey **

Last week, on Thursday January 18th at 4:49pm Eastern, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on its way to the International Space Station. On board are 4 astronauts from Axiom Space, a private company that’s building a brand new space station.

To celebrate the successful launch of AX-3, we’re bringing you one of our favorite episodes from the Crafted archives: an interview with Axiom’s Director of In-Space Manufacturing. Keep listening to find out why Axiom is building a commercial space station — and why microgravity is such a special environment for building things like computer chips and for doing biological research that could lead to new cancer treatments.

“When we talk about future cities in space, it seems like they're really far away. The truth is, it's happening right now. We're building those.” That’s the mind-blowing reality that Jana Stoudemire works in everyday at Axiom Space, a leading space infrastructure developer based in Texas. Axiom is building a successor to the International Space Station and developing commercial opportunities in orbit that go way beyond satellites. Central to all this is the unique environment of microgravity, which allows you to do things that just can’t be done on earth.

On this episode, Jana takes us to the final frontier, and shares Axiom's plans for advanced biomedical research, space-made semiconductors that could enable quantum computing, and what this means for future scientific advances. She’ll also get into the challenges of building a state-of-the-art lab that will orbit around the earth, from the equipment and personnel, to where does that exercise bike go?

This is Crafted from Artium: a show about great products, and the people who make them.

Crafted is sponsored by Artium, which helps startups and enterprises build incredible products, recruit high-performing teams, and achieve the culture of craft needed to build great software for years to come. Learn more at ThisIsArtium.com (and let us know you learned about us from the podcast).

...more