How space became the hottest market on Earth (and off)

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If you haven't looked up recently, you're missing the next gold rush. The space economy reached $613 billion globally last year and is projected to hit $1.8 trillion within a decade. SpaceX's valuation is now $400 billion, making it the world's most valuable private company. Florida witnessed 100 rocket launches this year, with 200 expected next year. The commercialization of space has arrived, and everyone from Silicon Valley to Shanghai wants in.

"The first trillionaires will be the people who invested in space, and they're going to get their returns," says Greg Autry, associate provost for space commercialization at the University of Central Florida and author of "Red Moon Rising." His university is launching the U.S.’s first Space MBA program next year, a sign that space needs business expertise as much as rocket science.

The transformation stems from massive private investment and improved technology, according to Autry, with companies making government-developed systems that are much more effective and cost-efficient than it was previously. What once required significant congressional budgets now attracts venture capital.

Beyond satellites and celebrity stunts

Most people know about Starlink satellites and maybe caught headlines about Katy Perry kissing the ground after a quick trip to the edge of space. But while the public focuses on these flashy milestones, companies are quietly building infrastructure for sustained commercial operations above Earth.

Blue Origin demonstrated the industry's maturation earlier this month when its New Glenn rocket successfully launched NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission and landed its first stage on a recovery ship. Previously, only SpaceX had achieved orbital rocket recovery. Launch prices have plummeted from tens of thousands per kilogram to under $3,000 on SpaceX's Falcon 9. 

Now that Blue Origin has joined the reusable rocket club, the resulting price war could finally make space accessible to more businesses. The immediate beneficiaries are satellite operators who use imaging to track wildfires in real-time, optimize crop yields, and assess disaster damage for insurance claims. Agricultural companies already monitor soil moisture across entire continents while emergency services spot fires before they spread. These services have paying customers today — and as launch costs drop, expect hundreds more companies to join them in orbit.

Those next companies might be computational. Tech executives increasingly discuss space-based data centers powered by constant solar energy and cooled by the vacuum of space. Elon Musk claims satellites could generate 100 gigawatts annually within five years to power these orbital computing farms. While ambitious, the rapid progress in launch capabilities makes such proposals less fantastical than they would have seemed even recently.

Medicine in microgravity

The most promising frontier might be making products in space that cannot be manufactured on Earth. NASA's In Space Production Applications program has invested over $60 million demonstrating these capabilities, with pharmaceutical companies discovering that microgravity fundamentally changes how proteins crystallize and cells behave.

Proteins are notoriously difficult to crystallize on Earth, but without gravity, molecules move more slowly and temperature can be better controlled, yielding superior results. This has real implications: Merck created a new formulation of its cancer drug Keytruda based on unexpected crystal formations discovered in microgravity, with human trials expected soon.

Beyond drug crystallization, microgravity enables entirely new approaches to medicine. Cancer cells grow ten times faster in space, dramatically accelerating drug testing timelines. According to Autry, future possibilities include organ replacements that could be grown without requiring immunosuppressant drugs and new approaches to anti-aging therapeutics.

Those applications are a ways off but pharmaceutical companies are building a real pipeline to research and develop more space-developed candidates.

The real space race

The U.S. isn't alone in this rush. China is pursuing the same opportunities but at unprecedented scale and speed. The country has already returned samples from the moon's far side, plans to land astronauts by 2030, and aims to build a fully operational lunar base with a nuclear reactor by 2035. Their satellite fleet exploded from under 100 to over 1,000 in a decade. They've completed their own space station just as the ISS prepares for retirement.

China invested $2.86 billion in commercial space ventures last year, seventeen times what it spent in 2016. The country is pursuing all aspects of space development simultaneously, from lunar robotics to satellite megaconstellations to reusable rockets that mirror SpaceX's Starship technology. A recent Commercial Space Federation report warns China could overtake the U.S. as the leading space power within five to ten years.

The stakes extend beyond national pride. Whoever establishes the first permanent moon base will control access to lunar water ice, which can be converted into rocket fuel for deeper space missions. Rare earth elements and platinum group metals in asteroids represent trillions in potential value that companies are desperate to mine (though extraction and return costs remain hotly debated). The country that dominates commercial space could dominate the economy here on Earth.