The New Space Economy

According to the OECD, the space economy is "the whole range of activities and resources that create value and benefits for human beings in the exploration, research, management and use of space". Today, the space economy is mostly about near-Earth orbit and geostationary satellites. It is a mixed, public/private economy. Governments take part in it with their military programs and space agencies, while private firms focus on making rocket launchers and shipping satellites and astronauts into space, as well as on the sale of services deriving from satellite technology. The space industry has a major economic value. It is the enabling element of a growing number of networks and platforms in the most diverse sectors of economic activity: from information technology to television, from GPS to mobile phones. Furthermore, the use of satellite technology in navigation, meteorology and Earth observation has fueled the development of applications and services for air traffic control, management of natural resources and agriculture, and the monitoring of global environment and climate change.

One of the main barriers to the development of the space economy is the high cost of going into space. Over the past ten years, the US has opened its space industry to private launch service providers. The new startups have made progress in the development of rocket boosters, managing to halve the cost of sending a satellite into space. The competition from private spaceflight companies is forcing aerospace incumbents in the US and Europe to review their technologies and reduce their production costs. Cheaper rockets, together with progress in satellite technology, will open the market to small and medium-sized enterprises, which will be able to provide niche services for a greater number of customers. Cost reduction could even make the dream of reaping solar energy directly from space come true, giving us a new and important source of clean energy.

The decreasing cost of access to space is also one of the major factors on which the future of human space exploration depends. Another driving force will be the collaboration between government space agencies and private companies. Space agencies are in fact moving toward continuing the journey of humans beyond the Earth: they plan to do a sequence touching the Moon, a selection of asteroids, and then reach Mars. The use of space resources will be decisive for the success of these missions.

In recent years, space travel has returned to fascinate and inspire a new generation persuaded that the expansion of the economic sphere beyond the Earth's orbit is possible today. The new space industry has in its sight the extraction of minerals, water and other substances from the celestial bodies that are close to Earth. Space resources would ensure fuel, oxygen, and water for spacecraft engaged in interplanetary exploration, and maintain life support systems of new space stations, perhaps placed in one of the Lagrangian points between the Earth and the Moon. Minerals would be used to build space infrastructures and, eventually, to trade with Earth. Space can thus contribute to the resolution of current and future problems created by the combination of population growth, dearth of critical mineral resources, and man-made environmental disasters.