/ About this event
For sixty years, space was a place we visited. Now it's becoming a place we build. Microgravity and hard vacuum aren't obstacles to manufacturing-for some products, they're the whole point. No gravity to slump a crystal. No atmosphere to contaminate a weld. Conditions you can't buy at any price on Earth.
The Small Steps & Giant Leaps community is bringing together the startups turning that idea into working hardware. This is a demo day, so expect to see the real thing- prototypes, test rigs, and founders who can answer hard technical questions on the spot.
Expect to see work across areas like:
* **Space-based semiconductors** growing crystals and fabricating chips in microgravity, where the absence of gravity-driven defects could produce materials Earth fabs can't match
* **In-space 3D printing** additive manufacturing of parts, structures, and eventually entire spacecraft components that never have to survive a launch
* **Robotic assembly** autonomous systems that build large structures in orbit, piece by piece, without a human in a suit
* **Materials processing** alloys, fiber optics, and pharmaceuticals that form differently, and often better, without gravity
* **In-situ resource utilization** turning lunar and asteroid material into feedstock so we stop shipping everything up from Earth
These are the kinds of methods on the table- come see which ones the founders bring to the floor.
Whether you're an investor hunting for the next hard-tech breakout, an engineer who wants to see how these systems actually work, or a founder looking for your next collaborator, this is where the people building the off-world industrial base come to show what they've got.
Come see what gets made when you take gravity out of the equation.
This event is a part of #SFTechWeek—a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem. Learn more at www.tech-week.com.
