Space Biz

Space is no longer the domain of American enterprise. Nor is space investment limited to government funding. Bryce Consulting drilled down into their research and found that 61% of space investment comes from non-American sources. Significantly, of the companies pursuing a commercial space agenda 65% were not typically seen as related to the space industry. This is noteworthy because it validates the view that commercial interests in space are more distributed across multiple economic sectors than just the aerospace usual suspects. It makes sense that a pharmaceutical firm (e.g., Bayer, Gilead) would look to micro-gravity manufacturing in space for a new revenue source. Or that a cruise ship line (e.g., Royal Caribbean) would see opportunities in space as an obvious high margin brand extension. Or that an international construction and engineering firm (e.g., Bechtel) would see the need for building new infrastructure in space as the next big profit center. Or that Rio Tinto would consider asteroid mining a natural strategic next step to their global mining operations supported by the autonomous mining capabilities in development and use since the 1980s by such firms as John Deer, Komatsu, and Caterpillar.