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Space: The Next Trillion Dollar Industry

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Space: The Next Trillion Dollar Industry

Wendover Productions,

5 min read
3 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Think billionaires will be the ones to thrust the space industry into the future? Think again…

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Visionary
  • Engaging
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have gotten a lot of press for their commercial space endeavors, but the truth is that the commercial space industry was relevant before Musk, Branson or Bezos entered the scene. Companies like DigitalGlobe and MDA have been providing government agencies with the bird’s-eye view for decades, and as launch prices drop, newcomers are entering and use cases are multiplying. Sam Denby describes the current state of the space industry in this Wendover Productions video, and special guest Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains what is needed to take the industry further into the future.

Summary

Billionaires have made a highly publicized entrance to space exploration, but the commercial space industry has been thriving for decades.

Commercial ventures like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic got a lot of attention when they arrived on the scene, but the commercial space industry is nothing new. It started with companies like DigitalGlobe (which has been in business for 25 years) and MDA Space Missions (which started in 1969), and in recent years it’s become increasingly crowded with newcomers like Planet, which makes satellites the size of a toaster. Access to Earth’s orbit has almost become “commonplace.”

In the past, launching satellites into space was prohibitively expensive. With one in 20 launches ending in failure, the industry was a risky business proposition. Recently, though, launch costs have decreased precipitously, and use cases have...

About the Speaker

Wendover Productions is an educational YouTube channel with over three million subscribers. It was created by Sam Denby, who also presents Half as Interesting; Sam from Wendover; and Extremities.

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