Yeah, I think I agree with pretty much all of that.
And again to the extent the assembler stuff is feasible you have to look at who's doing it. Well the 3D printing in space demos took place on the ISS, with the first being a NASA-incubated, SBIR-funded startup and the second being an ESA initiative involving iconic oldspace company Airbus and some academics. It's certainly not as profitable as owning most of the world's launch capacity and not coincidentally most of the world's satellites, but the people that are doing the low level, high risk stuff are coming out of research institutes and living off agency funding....
As I see it, "Advanced Manufacturing" is important here on Earth, not so much from the self-sufficiency angle (though it's an interesting question for countries like Argentina) but from the viewpoint of carbon balance.
And again to the extent the assembler stuff is feasible you have to look at who's doing it. Well the 3D printing in space demos took place on the ISS, with the first being a NASA-incubated, SBIR-funded startup and the second being an ESA initiative involving iconic oldspace company Airbus and some academics. It's certainly not as profitable as owning most of the world's launch capacity and not coincidentally most of the world's satellites, but the people that are doing the low level, high risk stuff are coming out of research institutes and living off agency funding....