Seeing the overall mission as one of conquering and then escaping the Gravity Well lets us focus also on the need to settle as well as explore. It is this connection that makes this investment so practically valuable for everyday citizens.
Read MoreTo regain our competitive leadership, we need to build our economy on something new, using a quality and degree of expertise no other nation has obtained. What could that new economic engine be? And are we capable of creating it?
We have a brilliant precedent: the flying machine.
Read MoreAs a rule of thumb, ten pounds of rocket fuel are required to push one pound of equipment or human into low Earth orbit.
Read MoreMost of today’s space economy occupies low Earth orbit, a 1,200-mile-wide band that’s a slice of less than one one-thousandth of the Gravity Well.
Read MoreThe risks in space are socialized while the rewards are privatized, a famous economist argues. We taxpayers bear the risks, and private companies reap the rewards.
Read MoreThe most common argument against a publicly funded space program is that we can’t afford it, given the government’s many other priorities. The most common answer is that space makes an excellent public investment. But if it is a good investment, why not leave space to private investors?
Read MoreSomeday, perhaps 30 years from now, companies will be grabbing asteroids and exploiting them for mineral extraction. Asteroids contain the same valuable minerals, from gold to platinum, from cobalt to indium, that space showered upon Earth billions of years ago. One sizeable asteroid can hold $20 trillion worth of minerals. On a smaller, more practical scale, Peter Diamandis estimates that a single 100-foot asteroid can contain as much as $50 billion of platinum.
Read MorePharmaceutical corporations already occupy a sizeable payload portion of satellites in space. And not just for exploration of space and Earth. The absence of gravity causes crystals to grow unusually large and with almost perfect form, without touching the walls of their containers.
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