The Space Economy
The Space Economy: Past, Present, and Future
I: Introduction
The Space Economy, or the commercial use of space, encompasses essentially everything done for business purposes beyond the bounds of our terrestrial environment. Historically, exploration of space, and subsequent action in space, whether this be the Moon landing, the International Space Station, or probes sent to other planets and beyond our solar system, has been limited to large countries which could afford to shoulder the burden of the level of investment required over many years to complete such missions. The landscape of the use of space for productive means, however, is rapidly changing, and is set to change even more in the coming decades. As such, it seems both timely and informative to explore the current state of the space economy, as well as the possibilities for growth in the space economy.
II: The Current Landscape
Globally, the space sector is a technology dense environment that employed a minimum of 900,000 people around the world as of 2013 (OECD 2014). This included public administrations, such as space agencies and departments in civil and defense associated government agencies, the manufacturing industry including building satellites, rockets, and ground systems, direct supply of components, and the larger services sector primarily consisting of satellite telecommunications. This does not include the heavy investment in research and development, however, of which universities and research locations are direct, and often large, recipients. Most of the innovation occurs there, though the private sector is increasingly growing as well in this regard, as there seems to be the promise of capturing profit from space-based projects.
Getting and developing capabilities in space is highly coveted for strategic purposes, with both companies and countries continuing to invest in its pursuit. While many perceive investment in space associated industry as expensive, the actual investment by the G20 countries measured as a percentage of GDP is quite low, with the United States, the largest program in the world, being only 0.3% of GDP (OECD 2014). While OECD countries have the fattest pockets for space budgets (50.8 billion in 2013) (OECD 2014), more and more countries are moving into the sector, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. The overall space economy had approximately 323 billion dollars in revenues in 2015, with 58% going to consumer services such as satellite related business, 33% going to manufacturing supply chain, and 8.4% going to satellite operators (Hively 2016).
III: Present Industries
Space Transportation
The space transportation industry gets the majority of its gains from putting satellites into orbit around the Earth. Private and government satellites are placed in low Earth orbit and geosynchronous Earth orbit. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration has allowed four commercial spaceports, while sites in China and Russia have also added capability. Commercial space flight has encouraged investment in reusable launch vehicles, which allow for the placing of larger payloads into orbit. Companies such as SpaceX and Amazon have made headlines with their pursuit of these technologies for purely commercial ventures.
Satellites and Equipment
Commercial satellite creation is primarily for civilian or non-profit use. This does not include military and human space flight programs. Annual growth of satellite manufacturing in the United States has, since approximately 1996, been roughly 11 percent, or doubling every seven years, while globally this figure was 13 percent for the same time period, doubling between every six and seven years (Wikipedia, 2017). The ground equipment manufacturing sector includes creation of ground station communication terminals, mobile telephones, and home television receivers, with a similar rate of growth as for satellites (Wikipedia, 2017). Those businesses and organizations that own and operate satellites provide access to data and telecommunication companies, for a price. Satellites are also used for imagery of both Earth and space. Navigation is also a core component of what satellites can do, with geospatial positioning being their primary purpose. Longitude, latitude, and elevation are all possible to be determined to a very high degree of specificity using satellites.
Space Tourism
Space tourism is the use of space travel for the recreation, leisure, and business experiences of those that are willing and able to pay for such services. There are a number of different types, including orbital, sub orbital, and lunar space tourism. As of now, these services have only been provided by the Russian Space Agency. Aerospace companies such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, as well as SpaceX, are all working to fill this niche market, and as the price comes down, this may be more possible for an increasing segment of the population.
IV: Future Possibilities
Asteroid Mining
Asteroid mining is exactly what it sounds like; the mining of asteroids, minor planets, and near-Earth objects, for monetary gain. Minerals can be taken from asteroids or comets and then either used for construction in space, or brought back to Earth. Some of the minerals that this includes would be gold, iridium, silver, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium, and tungsten, which could be brought back to Earth, and iron, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, aluminum and titanium which could be used for construction (Wikipedia, 2017).
Given how expensive it currently is to put things into space using conventional non reusable rockets, due to both the cost of fuel and the cost of not being able to use the physical infrastructure again after its one-time use, mining in space could solve a great many issues associated with the desire to spread economic and human activity throughout the solar system. For instance, water captured in space could be decomposed into its constituent elements, oxygen and hydrogen, and used for fuel, so that fuel would not have to be brought up from Earth. There are a number of challenges before this can be realized, however, with not just the cost of getting the necessary infrastructure into space, but identification of good candidate asteroids suitable for mining and technical challenges with the actual transportation of the infrastructure to the asteroid and mining once there. As a result, at present time, terrestrial mining remains the only way for getting raw minerals today.
Given that Earth resources are becoming increasingly scarce, however, and both public and private funding of space development continues to grow as it has, then this could well change. There are concerns, however, about the fact that any massive development of an element rare on Earth, such as say platinum, that could be found on an asteroid, mined, and then brought back to Earth, would result in a glut on the market and, as a result, doom the venture to low profits. There are also considerable costs associated with asteroid mining, including research and development costs, exploration and prospecting costs, construction and infrastructure costs, operational and engineering costs, environmental costs, and time costs. There is also considerable concern about the legal status of anything procured in space. Previous treaties have stated that no one or country can own anything in space. As such, asteroid mining has a number of hurdles to leap before it can reach fruition.
Space Based Solar Power
In its essence, space based solar power is the idea of collecting solar power in space and sending it back to Earth. There are a number of advantages to this, including a higher collection rate, a longer collection period due to the lack of an atmosphere, and placing a solar array in place where there is constant sunlight. Roughly 55 to 60 percent of solar energy is lost when it travels through Earth’s atmosphere due to reflection and absorption (Wikipedia, 2017). Following collection, energy would be transmitted back to Earth’s surface and received by collector sites, with the energy most likely being sent in the form of microwave radiation. Launching materials into orbit, however, remains highly costly. Should this change, space based solar power could well become a great solution to both climate change and resource depletion. A gigawatt sized system, which would be comparable to a large commercial power plant, would need approximately 80,000 tons of material into orbit (Wikipedia, 2017). Should the cost of transporting goods into space come down, or, what is more likely, an in-space manufacturing system be brought online to construct things out of existing space resources, this could well become a possibility.
There are additional issues, however, such as the wireless transmission of power. While, as detailed above, the collecting satellite would change solar energy into electrical energy, it would then have to beam it to Earth in either microwave or laser form to a receiver on Earth. While this would not be harmful in any way to plant or animal life, there would be a great degree of land needed. In addition, the solar array itself would be vulnerable to both solar radiation and micrometeoroids. Despite these hurdles, space based solar power is being pursued by Japan, China, and Russia (Wikipedia, 2017).
Terraforming
Terraforming is the process by which a space body, such as a planet, is made similar to Earth ideally to the point of becoming habitable by changing its atmosphere, temperature, ecology, and surface features. Given the example of the rise of greenhouse gases on Earth and the resultant dramatic shift in global climate, it has now been proven that humans can change their environment to the point of being able to effect an entire planet. Proposals for dealing with climate change are similar in nature to those that could be employed in the future to modify another planet and make it habitable. Whether this includes fertilizing the air with black particles to reflect light, placing a large mirror in space to deflect some of the incoming solar radiation, or dramatically altering the atmosphere’s composition by carbon sequestration and storage, such methods have moved out of the realm of pure science fiction, and have become either science fact, or very real possibilities for the future.
Mars is usually seen as the ideal candidate for terraforming. There have been numerous studies done on changing the temperature and atmosphere of the planet. However, as with other projects detailed in this report, the economic power for such dramatic and large scale work is yet to materialize, and remains a significant hurdle. In addition, there are a host of questions around not just the technical logistics and methodology of doing this, but also the ethics, economics, and politics associated with deliberately modifying something completely beyond human reach previously.
Should the cost of reaching space decrease, and resultantly the cost of construction of infrastructure in space come down as well, Mars is a good candidate because it is similar in size to Earth, has an approximately 24-hour day, and has a wealth of water currently in the form of polar ice. A thicker atmosphere would be required, but this could be accomplished with emission of greenhouse gases, similar to how this has progressed terrestrially on Earth.
V: Conclusion
The economy of space is a bright place for new and adventurous development. It would seem that, with a bit of investment and technical progress, development of the space economy from where it stands now and what it services to the potential future gains to be had might well solve some of humankind’s biggest problems including, but not limited to, resource depletion, population growth, and energy consumption. The question, then, becomes how do we go about facilitating this? Historically space development has been the purview of large nation states competing or collaborating with one another. This phase of development seems to have stagnated recently, however, and private enterprise has taken up the slack. No one less than Stephen Hawking has stated that, for humanity to survive, it will have to spread throughout the solar system, and perhaps beyond. Hopefully industry in partnership with governments can facilitate this in the coming years, before it becomes too late.
VI: References
OECD (2014), The Space Economy at a Glance 2014, OECD Publishing
Hively, Carol, 2016. Space Foundation Report Reveals Global Space Economy at $323 Billion in 2015. Retrieved November 3rd, 2017. Space Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.spacefoundation.org/media/press-releases/space-foundation-report-reveals-global-space-economy-323-billion-2015
Commercial use of space. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5th, 2017, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_use_of_space
Asteroid mining. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6th, 2017, from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
Space-based solar power. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7th, 2017, from Wikipedia: