Business In Space

Space, the final frontier. It may sound like a sci-fi movie plot but it is very true that companies are already looking beyond Earth for business opportunities. That’s right, the sky is no longer the limit. Humanity, besides all of its setbacks, might just be entering yet another golden age of exploring and finding new opportunities. Do we know for sure if these things might happen in the future? Of course not, but that shouldn’t stop us from discussing these topics.

Opportunities in space: -

So what would business look like in space? We can already make a pretty good guess about which industries would make it to the stars first.

1. Energy The energy sector is the largest industry on Earth. It is valued at over $8.4 trillion and growing at a 4.1% compound annual growth rate. The reason is quite obvious, but the effects are disastrous, to say the least.

Space Solar Power is just solar power that is more effectively gathered from space due to the lack of a filtering atmosphere.

Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, anticipates “millions of people living and working in space” in the coming decades. He has been investing more than $1 billion per year into his space transportation firm, Blue Origin. The energy required for this space civilization is going to come from modular space solar energy platforms.

Now you can’t get to space without propellant. These propellants are a mixture of cryogenic liquid oxygen combined with liquid hydrogen or methane. For now, this is our only way to move around in space. Companies such as the United Launch Alliance (a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing) and SpaceX have proposed to provide the precious propellant initially. However, there is a better way to keep the propellant coming for the future. Mining it.

2. Mining and Transportation: -

A. Mining Resources can be extracted from nearby celestial bodies such as the Moon or other Near Earth Objects such as asteroids.

According to the Luxembourg Space Agency, The Moon, other planets and asteroids contain a rich diversity of minerals, gases and water that could be used to provide raw materials, energy and sustenance to sustain human life and enable exploration deeper into space. It may surprise you to know that expedition missions to NEO’s (Near Earth Objects) have already been conducted. Here is some more data compiled by the Luxembourg Space Agency.

· The European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe, which was launched in 2004, astounded the world with images and data sent back from its Philae module after landing on a comet in 2015.

· The first Japanese Hayabusa (“Peregrine Falcon”) probe brought some 1,500 grains of material back from the Itokawa asteroid in 2010. A second Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency probe reached the Ryugu asteroid in 2019. If all goes well, its samples will be back on Earth two years later.

· The Moon was visited several times by the United States, the former Soviet Union and, most recently, China.

· The samples returned by the various missions and the data gathered since then proves the mineral wealth of lunar rocks and dust. Moreover, recent orbital missions such as NASA’s LCROSS and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission, further increased the attractiveness of the Moon by showing large deposits of water ice in several locations scattered throughout the lunar poles.

According to reports from Goldman Sachs, space mining is much more realistic than perceived. This is all thanks to the cost of spacecraft plummeting due to advancements such as SpaceX’s reusable rockets.

The cost of space mining might soon be comparable to traditional mines.

B. Transportation Moving around in space is not easy. It’s easy to forget, but space travel presents problems that we don’t even think twice about here on the ground. First off, there is no ground in space, and no atmosphere. This means spacefarers will need all kinds of life support systems. Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field also shield us from harmful space radiation. But space ships will have to look out for themselves once they leave Earth.

The most important resource that will be mined in space is water. Water is critical for all life-support functions in space:

· sustenance

· hygiene

· food production

· Effective shielding from harmful space radiation.

· Water is also the single most important feedstock for in-space refineries, which will produce rocket propellants for sale to transportation providers.

Making propellants available beyond Earth would lead to the setting up of various fuel depots across the solar system. This would in effect, lead to the creation of the very first space-super-highway!

There are already very well established industry titans waiting to utilize these opportunities and solve these problems. Namely: -

· Space X

· Blue Origin

· Virgin Galactic

· United Launch Alliance.

So we pretty much have an established market with huge promise. But unfortunately, it comes with its fair share of risks as well. Sadly, we still have to clear a few earthlier hurdles before we can make fuel depots in space.

On April 24, 2012, a plan was announced by billionaire entrepreneurs to mine asteroids for their resources. The company was called Planetary Resources, and it had a lot of big names involved such as Googles Chief Executive Larry Page as an investor, aerospace entrepreneurs Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis. The company also had film director and explorer James Cameron on board as an adviser. They planned to create a fuel depot in space by 2020 by using water from asteroids to make fuel depots and supply propellant.

The scheme however wound down in 2020 and all the hardware was auctioned off.

3. Construction: -

Building things for space is a uniquely complicated challenge. All of the tools and supplies required need to be small enough to fit on a rocket and strong enough that they won’t break. Likewise, the heavy machinery we would typically use for construction projects, like carrying deck cranes and scissor lifts, aren’t outfitted to work anywhere other than Earth.

However, advancements in technology and construction methods are making it possible to accomplish more space development than ever before.

We have already managed to build in space. The International Space Station (ISS) is a good example. Building the complete station required more than 40 assembly flights. As of 2020, 36 Space Shuttle flights delivered ISS elements. Other assembly flights consisted of modules lifted by the Falcon 9, Russian Proton rocket or, in the case of Pirs and Poisk, the Soyuz-U rocket.

Space construction technology has had a few advancements in recent years: -

· In-situ construction: - The name stands for the process of building “on-site”. NASA has announced that it is developing this process to build structures on surfaces of other planets.

· Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS): - This process uses a new polymer that can be used in places like the ISS. It can be used to make fastenings and bolts. The uniqueness of this material is that it is highly re-usable, which can be handy when you are in space and short on resources.

· 3D printing and robotic assembly: - 3D printing is the future of construction in space. The ability to fabricate materials using a machine would get rid of many of the previously discussed limitations. Using robotics for assembly will reduce a lot of risks associated with space travel.

Used properly, these solutions could literally make humanities future. Made In Space (MIS) enterprise, has already come up with a product that can actually be put to use whenever needed.

The Archinaut is a solution for in-space manufacturing needs, enabling the next generation of large-scale, off-world manufacturing. It is a technology suite that combines additive manufacturing with robotic assembly for remote in-space construction of large complex structures. MIS details how Archinaut and similar technologies could play a crucial role in NASA’s roadmap to go from the Moon to Mars.

The Archinaut

4. Hospitality and real estate: -

A vacation to Mars, while it is not a reality as of now, it is now at least out of the realm of sci-fi and more of an actual possibility in the future. But before the hospitality and real estate industry reaches another planet, it must first exit our atmosphere.

With SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Orion Span, it is now possible to imagine the future of hotels in space and a significant increase in space travellers expecting groups like Accor, Marriott, or JingJiang to step up and start offering packages.

Virgin Galactic has already signed up celebrities (Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Katy Perry) for a journey in space, providing not only an experience but also a journey through Zero-G and the everyday life of an astronaut.

Even though it's no 5-star experience, allowing tourism in space for orbital and sub-orbital trips is a big step in the right direction. All eyes are on SpaceX which had announced an inaugural space tourism mission with 2 paying customers in 2018 but has delayed it. Blue Origin recently has decided to hold an auction for one of its 6 seats on its spacecraft which will fly passengers to the edge of space for an 11-minute trip.

Experts speculate that the first space habitats will be launched from Earth. Eventually, all the other industries will begin to complement each other. Space mining firms will source the raw material, transportation industries will deliver them and construction companies will build structures.

What to expect: -

What to expect is a big question. Whatever happens in the future will be huge, but the very near future won’t be anything crazy like star trek. Think of our present as the time when the first planes were starting to fly. The first space tour won’t have a fancy hotel room or even good food. But over time we can go further.

Experts believe that the moon can be colonized. A moon base can be much more than a vanity project. It can be a forward operating base. A launchpad from where we can take the next step towards colonizing our entire solar system.

The basis for the economy is a scarcity of resources. Mining materials from space could change the very basis of economics. The next space race might just end up funding itself. Once humans are able to colonize another celestial body like the Moon, then the global economy will have to evolve and will have to become more than just “global”.

Businesses with foresight and the ability to adapt to this new change are the ones who will successfully launch their dreams beyond the sky, quite literally.

Limitations: -

We have many challenges to face before we can think about happily ruling the stars.

Energy crisis and global warming

There is an obvious lack of resources here on Earth, which might lead to an unforeseen rise in prices to go to space. This can either boost the space mining resources or completely stop it. There are financially safer ways to derive energy right here on Earth. Besides the usual, solar, wind, hydro and geothermal sources, we also have Nuclear power.

If the situation regarding the usage of fossil fuel gets any worse, humanity will have to push the panic button and we may not even take the risk involved in the space business.

When it comes to owning property in outer space, it’s not as easy as it is on Earth.

The Outer Space Treaty

After ten years of negotiations between nearly 100 nations, the Outer Space Treaty opened for signature on January 27, 1966. It entered into force as the constitution for outer space on October 10, 1967.

The Outer Space Treaty was well received; it was ratified by ninety-six nations and signed by an additional twenty-seven states. The outcome has been that the basic foundation of international space law.

The treaty allows for the mining of resources from space even by private entities, but it strictly prohibits ownership of territory and outer space land. So, looks like that sweet Airbnb on Mars with a stunning view of Valles Marineris (Mars’s Grand Canyon) will have to wait.

We don’t have a hyperdrive

Even if we surpass all these limitations, colonizing the entire solar system is still a big task. Unlike sci-fi movies, human beings have no technical way of travelling at speeds even close to that of light as of now.

If we are to send perishables to our furthest colonies, it will certainly be challenging.

Other than that, we might have personnel just reaching retirement age after a few round trips.

Lack of law and order: -

Once space business becomes business as usual, we’ll need laws to keep things in check. We must not forget that laws do more than just discourage unethical business practices, they provide assurance to investors, they hold organizations accountable to the people, they ensure that businesses don’t abandon ethics.

The current outer space treaty broadly states that all “activities which are done for the welfare of mankind are allowed”, but if the business is to be done in outer space, then we must make sure that it is done properly.

Space pirates and evil organizations with space weapons are only cool in comic books.

Conclusion: -

We are on the verge of entering a new age of exploration. After having charted our planet, we are finally ready to step outside and break new ground.

It is very important that we do not take the healthy level of competition that makes the business what it is, and blow it out of proportion and ruin our chances to do greater things.

The coming few decades will show us new challenges, but that’s why it will be very important for businesses to collaborate on a scale never before seen.

Space is not just a standalone industry but it is the future mode of conducting business. And that future is coming no matter what. The only limitations we will face will be ones we put on ourselves. And the only way to overcome those limitations is together.

-- Aayush Ambegaoker