I would guess the price is high because its really hard to make. And I doubt the cost of space made ZBLAN would be less than the cost of terrestrially made. The question is would there be enough demand for super high quality ZBLAN to cover the costs of doing it in space? If the value created by space made product was high enough it could kill off terrestrial production.
But I couldn't find any information about the size of the ZBLAN market, for all I know 3,000 kg could be many years worth of consumption. So, this is all guesswork but my back of the envelope calculation at least shows that the economics are not crazy.
But I couldn't find any information about the size of the ZBLAN market, for all I know 3,000 kg could be many years worth of consumption. So, this is all guesswork but my back of the envelope calculation at least shows that the economics are not crazy.