40: PREVIEW: Zero-G Fabs: Manufacturing Semiconductors in Weightlessness Guest: Bob Zimmerman Bob Zimmerman discusses a new company, which he believes is called Besar, that manufactures semiconductors in low Earth orbit using a zero-gravity environment. The
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2025
⏱️ 3 minutes
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Summary
Guest: Bob Zimmerman
Bob Zimmerman discusses a new company, which he believes is called Besar, that manufactures semiconductors in low Earth orbit using a zero-gravity environment. The core idea revolves around the reality that challenges like gravity, earthquakes, and air quality exist on Earth, making the weightless environment of space an exceptionally good environment for manufacturing chips. The company believes they can produce much better semiconductors in weightlessness than on Earth. They have signed a contract with SpaceX to utilize the Falcon 9 first stage booster, placing their manufacturing facility, called a "fab ship," on it. During flight, the Falcon 9 first stage experiences approximately five minutes in a vacuum superior to anything achievable on Earth, which the company intends to use to produce semiconductors. They plan to start launching these fab ships by year's end, with approximately 12 planned missions, making this a profit center for SpaceX.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | At Pluralsight, we don't just teach skills. |
| 0:02.8 | We are building the tech workforce, who deliver results fast, accelerated by top-tier content. |
| 0:08.6 | Lead with confidence, lead with expertise. |
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| 0:15.9 | This is John Batchel, speaking with colleague Bob Zimmerman about a new company that is teaming up with |
| 0:22.0 | SpaceX, his proposal, and Voyager 1 of a space station. However, it's all about new ways to use |
| 0:30.7 | low Earth orbits zero gravity. And in this instance, it's for fabs. That's the machine that |
| 0:36.9 | makes the very high-end chips that are so much |
| 0:39.8 | in demand because of AI and AGI. The dream of the future is based on chip making. Well, on Earth, |
| 0:48.2 | there are challenges such as earthquakes, gravity, and the air quality. But in space, as the old movie says, they can't hear you scream. |
| 0:57.3 | There's also very little gravity. It's not zero, but it's zero G gravity. And that is a very good |
| 1:04.5 | environment for making chips. So the idea Bob explains putting SpaceX first stage booster Falcon 9 together with a fab robot, |
| 1:17.1 | together with an ambition to create better and better chips. Wonderful. Here's Bob to explain. |
| 1:24.4 | Much more of this later. This is a really strange idea and I'm not sure how they're going to do it, but this company, |
| 1:31.7 | and I think it's called Beskzaw, I'm not pronouncing that maybe correctly, they make |
| 1:36.4 | semiconductors. |
| 1:37.3 | You can make much better semiconductors in weightlessness. |
| 1:41.4 | So they've signed the contract with SpaceX to put their, their manufacturing |
| 1:47.2 | facility, they called it a fab ship, on a first stage of Falcon 9. And so while it does a launch, |
| 1:55.4 | the Falcon 9 first stage comes up and then it comes right back down. But for a short period of |
| 1:59.9 | time during this flight, |
| 2:01.7 | it's in a vacuum that is much better than anything you can produce on earth. And the company |
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