The Infinite Frontier

The Space Economy: An Analysis

From the early 2000s to the mid 2010s, space exploration faded away from public interest. The glory of the Apollo era was past vintage, and NASA was coming under scrutiny amidst economic decline, leading to squashed budgets and foul press.

Then, right around the mid 2010s, as I was in my teens the shift began to form. As I recall, it started with the emergence of NASAs iconic branding on hats, shirts and hoodies from a slew of streetwear and fashion brands. Shortly thereafter, Star Wars made its return to the big screen, adding fuel to the hyper drives.

At the same time, everything was coming to fruition in the tech world. Elon Musk was landing rockets vertically, Jeff Bezos threw his hat into the ring with Blue Origin, and commercial spaceflights were making the cover of “Popular Science”. The dawn of American accelerationism in the infinite frontier was upon us.

Flash forward to a post Covid world, and society is itching for new tech. AI, humanoid robots, nuclear reactors, drones and space are at the forefront of desire after years of the most exciting new businesses being food delivery and fake meat.

In any case, I am no different than everyone else. I love to marvel at the stars, and the possibilities in the great vacuum above. For the last few years I have followed companies like Rocket Lab, SpaceX, Redwire, and Firefly, longing for any development that gets us one step closer to Mars.

To better understand the ecosystem of space, I also made the graphic below:

You’re going to want to click on this one and zoom to enhance. It is packed to the brim with every industry both directly and indirectly impacting The Space Economy.

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