By James Pethokoukis, John Roth, Rich Boling, Mike Gold, and Matthew Weinzierl

We’re all familiar with far-off visions of outer space from the pages of science fiction, but many Americans are unaware of the exciting things happening in the space economy right now. Still fewer know of the very real possibilities for the coming decades. To get a better picture of space commerce today and tomorrow, I invited experts John Roth, Rich Boling, Mike Gold, and Matthew Weinzierl to join me in a recent AEI event.

John Roth serves as vice president of business development for Sierra Space, a subsidiary of the Sierra Nevada Corporation. Richard Boling is vice president of corporate advancement at Techshot. Mike Gold is executive vice president of civil space business development and external affairs at Redwire Space. And Matthew Weinzierl is the Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. You can download the episode here, and don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Tell your friends, leave a review.

Pethokoukis: I was reading a report from Morgan Stanley which said the current space economy is about $350 billion. I think it’s on its way to about a trillion over the next 20 years, which just kind of gets me thinking about the potential for the space economy. It’s an emerging sector, but can we maybe get a couple of opinions on what the real potential of this economy is? John, any numbers you can give me?

Roth:
Yeah. So, you know, of course, we’re a business, so we’re always looking at our
return on investment. We’re not just magnanimous, doing this for fun. We’ve got
to make sure that we can make a business out of it, although it is very fun to
develop a space station in low Earth orbit. We’ve taken a look at all those
studies, right? They go anywhere from a trillion-dollar economy to $1.4
trillion economy. We’ve looked at 200 companies that have concepts or things
that they think could be commercial applications in low Earth orbit. Some of
them you may laugh at a little bit and say, “Well, I don’t think that’s ever
really going to be a business,” but others, you can really envision that if
they’re successful, there’s going to be a huge increase in what kind of
business could be done.

And
things like, companies are looking at printing organs in space. I wonder if you
could really print replacement organs in space or create drugs that there’s no
way you could create on the surface of the Earth in microgravity and the way
that protein crystals align in space. It’s so unique. We look at the market as
an overall market capability, rather than looking at individual companies. Like
everyone’s been saying, you can’t identify what killer app is really going to
be out there. More from an aggregation of what we think potential businesses
are going to be.

When
we were doing our return on investment model, for example, for the space
station, we took a look at different functional groups. Satellite servicing,
for example, is going to be one area. And there’s a lot of things you can do.
You can move satellites from one orbit to another; you can repair satellites;
you can do orbital debris removal; you can build satellites; you can refuel
satellites. So, just in that one sector, there is maybe half a dozen to a dozen
businesses that could survive. And then you go over to media and entertainment,
same kind of thing. There’s probably six to 10 businesses we’ve identified,
subcategories under those.

And
what we’ve attempted to do is project where we think those markets could
potentially lead, assuming that there are some successful players. Not all of
them have to be successful; you only need a few companies to be successful. And
we’ve convinced ourselves that there is a very strong return on investment
potential from this market, which is what is driving us to do the investments
that we need to do to finish the current version of our vehicle. Because we think
that people in space is going to be a big component of that, as well as the
business opportunities that exist in space. So, you really have to take kind of
a macroeconomic look, instead of looking at individual businesses. And that’s
what we’ve done.

But I’ll ask Rich sort of a
version of that question. All these areas I find super intriguing, which is one
reason why we’re doing this, but the idea of the sort of manufacturing and
production facilities and space: Once you move toward proof of concept kinds of
items, we’re talking about organs and fiber optics, if any of these things
really takes off, to scale those up — won’t you need more than one commercial
facility? Are there thoughts that you’ll need several or more if you’re really
talking about producing something in any kind of great quantities?

Boling: You absolutely will need more than one unit. You’ve seen our BFF. It’s, you know, the size of three microwave ovens, if you will, right? You’re not going to need one module or one rack or why even one module, right? Who knows, you may have your own complete on-orbit manufacturing station destination for those sorts of things. And I’ll add that we definitely will need a Dream Chaser to bring these gently back to Earth, these organs and tissues back to Earth, where they’re needed, wherever in the country that they’re going to be needed. So, you know, Techshot definitely continues to follow with some interest, the development of that vehicle.

So,
you absolutely will need that. I want a sense of scale on time too, at least
for us, we’re all impatient. We all want to see this happen today and tomorrow.
And we are one of those companies, obviously, looking at human organs and
tissues and have done a ton of work on finding out what the market will bear,
in a sense, and then just beyond even the technical capability. And it’s a
great way to make a small fortune out of a large fortune in space. And we have
so many hurdles to get over just from the regulatory standpoint. And I think we
can surmount them. And I’m not sure, I think it’s probably a taller hurdle than
the hurdle of: Where do I build these? I think there are great companies who
are developing these commercial low Earth orbit destinations, such as Sierra
Space, but the regulatory piece is also super important too, no matter what
you’re doing.

Can you identify any sort of
specificity or any kind of regulatory complication or difficulty?

Boling:
Well, for one thing, you know, you can’t really send an FDA inspector to your
manufacturing facility. That’s going to be a little tougher, although some may
be able to do that. Now, you can certify a process, and it’s just like what’s
happened with, I think, in my view, the FAA and commercial launching. You’ve
got to stand up a group within the FDA to really focus on things they’ve never
seen before, things they’ve never had to think about before. And how can we all
come together and create some new oversight for this new world that we’re
living in?

Gold:
And just one other issue that’s out there is — and everyone take a sip of
coffee — the article six topic. This is article six of the Outer Space Treaty
that requires nations to both authorize and continually supervise the
activities of the private sector. We’re good at authorization here in the US
but have been — challenges ahead of us with the continuing supervision. It’s
very important for Congress and the executive branch to provide clear direction
in terms of which agency is providing that direction.

So,
that’s an important issue that we need to address and should do so with
alacrity to ensure that we don’t have regulatory barriers slowing down these
terrific innovations. Now, I also want to say a word on your first question,
which is, I really believe that if you look at a laboratory — let’s take a
terrestrial lab, and that the people working in the lab not only had to be
scientists but had to be the janitors and keep the laboratory going full-time.
You wouldn’t have great science from that lab. And that’s been the
International Space Station that our astronauts have to dedicate the lion’s
share of their time and efforts to keeping the ISS flying.

Now,
with commercial crew, for the first time we’re actually going to have
individuals that can dedicate their time to microgravity research and
development. I think that’s going to be a game-changer relative to the
productivity and what we can get out of these systems, say nothing of what
Sierra Space is doing. And there’s few things that are more important than
actually creating a commercial platform that can accommodate and be tailored
for these commercial activities. And again, I believe that we’re just at the
beginning of even understanding what the microgravity arena can mean in nearly
every industrial sector. That with agribusiness we’ll be able to feed the
hungry, with new innovations via what biotech was being described by Rich and
others will be able to heal the sick.

And
I guarantee you that the applications that are going to be most important we’re
not even imagining right now. So, I’m really looking forward to what will
happen. We know there’s a roughly $300 billion satellite industry right now.
And we’re going to look back on the days of satellites that were built entirely
on earth as the Dark Ages, that we will be looking at a future where everything
is going to be building itself in space because it makes sense. It’s safer.
It’s more efficient. It’s more affordable. And that is a future that I think,
again, is something to get very excited about.

Boling:
Yeah. And I’m grateful for our experience on board the ISS. I mean, it’s been a
great cradle for sort of nurturing, trying out new technologies. But just like
a tech incubator in your hometown, where people can come in and try things out.
You’re really not going to scale there. It’s really not for that. And so, I’m
quite optimistic that we can scale things that we develop and we discover on
board the ISS because of these new vehicles coming online.

Weinzierl:
And, Jim, I think you started with the question about the trillion dollar–type
forecasts. You know, I mean, if you just crunched the numbers, those are not
extreme growth rates, right? That’s like a 6 percent, 7 percent growth rate or
something for an industry that has, you know, a lot of risk in it, but a lot of
potential. And I think, as the other folks have been saying, it’s a bit of an
incremental process as well. We have, all of a sudden, totally revolutionized
launch capabilities, then you think about revolutionizing commercial space
station capabilities. Opportunities that seemed impossible suddenly start to
become feasible, from a business standpoint. So, that sort of growth doesn’t
seem at all out of reach to me, anyways.

Roth:
I think there’s a good analogy in terms of an inflection point. If you look
just a few years back at how many total satellites were in orbit, it was a few
hundred. It was something like 300 satellites, you know, five, 10 years ago.
And now you have literally thousands of satellites. And you have single
constellations that are looking at 5,000 to 10,000 satellites. Who would have
envisioned that 10 years ago? It’s just been an amazing inflection point. I
think you’re going to see the exact same thing in commercialization of low
Earth orbit.

Once
you have a platform, you have reliable low-cost transportation, and you’re
allowing companies like Rich’s and Mike’s to do the innovation that they need
to do to create products that are going to really be huge sellers, I think
you’re going to see a huge inflection point.

Mike, you’re talking about, you
know, clarity and direction with regulation. But what about clarity and
direction with the government’s commitment to space exploration? How important
is that? At one point, in the past, our government was all in on space
exploration, then it sort of wasn’t all in on space exploration for quite a
long time. How important is the overall development of the space economy that
we have a federal government that is interested in going to the moon and Mars
and beyond?

Gold:
Jim, all of these terrific capabilities wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the
government. And that’s not just me saying it. We’ve heard Elon Musk saying that
if it wasn’t for the support that he received from NASA and DARPA, there
wouldn’t be SpaceX today. So, while there’s terrific innovation and critical
sustainability coming from the private sector, we must never underestimate the
importance of consistent direction and support from the US government,
particularly as a catalyst for innovation, which is exactly what we saw with
Commercial Resupply Services contracts and the COTS program before that, as
well as acting as a customer for those services.

So,
government needs to act as catalyst, as customer, and having a vision, like the
Artemis program, that, again, is consistent and that we can support and that
will create innovations and commercial sustainability along the way is vital.
We can’t go back and forth, and we can’t equivocate and terminate programs. And
that’s why I applaud what the Biden administration has done to support and
sustain the Artemis program. We hope any future administrations will do so
because, you know, this isn’t just important for America. It’s important for
the world. It’s important for the private sector to be able to continue to
innovate, to have that consistency and support, again, from the government as
catalyst and the government as customer.

One reason I asked that question
is I think generally the public is pretty unaware of what’s happening now, both
the commercial potential for space, as well as sort of the more scientific and
exploratory aspects. They seem unaware of that. They see Musk and Jeff Bezos,
Richard Branson, and they view it as billionaires just going on a joy ride. And
there’s always been sort of this latent sort of hostility that people just
don’t see what it’s for. They don’t see the economic potential. So, I’m
wondering, do you think that message is getting out there about the kind of
potential that there really is even beyond, sort of, pure science?

Roth:
We still have a huge way to go in making the public aware of what is really
going on in space. I see it all the time. A friend of mine invited me to do a
presentation Kiwanis meeting so I thought, well, this would be good. I usually
talk to space audiences and folks that really know a lot about what’s going on.
And here’s a chance to see what the average people that are out there know
about space. They were astounded at all the things going on in space. I don’t
know, half the country still thinks the shuttle is flying to the International
Space Station. I mean, they’re very unaware, in general, about all the things
going on.

But
I talked about the move to commercialization of space and all of these business
opportunities that are coming and the idea of putting up a commercial space
station. The excitement in that group was unbelievable. We had probably 40 or
50 people there, and they did not want to stop asking questions. It was an
hour-long of questions about what was going on. So I think if we could capture
that kind of excitement in the general public, that would be huge for helping
to push NASA and the government in continuing what they’re doing here in
commercialization and making this vision of a commercial economy really happen.

Gold:
If I can just echo John’s comments, I think we’ve done a poor job and need to be
much more vocal, particularly outside of the space industry bubble, relative to
how important space is to every aspect of modern society. When I was with NASA,
I was doing an interview with a BBC reporter, and they asked me, in the wake of
climate change, don’t you think it’s important to focus on climate rather than
space? And to explain, we wouldn’t even know about climate change if it wasn’t
for the amazing capabilities and people at NASA and other space agencies that
are leveraging space-based capabilities to understand climatology and what’s
happening to the planet and how we can resolve those issues. And she was
calling me from a phone line that I’m sure was connected through space. 

So
no aspect of that didn’t have to do with space, but people just tend to take it
for granted. And again, we need to do a better job explaining its importance.
And as John described, when people hear about the Artemis program, and they see
themselves going forward to the moon, or they see themselves working on a commercial
space station, it does still inspire. But we just need to remind everyone what
we’re doing and the impact on their daily lives, from medicine to machines, to
agriculture, to jobs and economy and national security. We all need to be
purveyors of that message strongly because in the end, if our public
policymakers aren’t hearing that from the people, we won’t get the support, and
we won’t get the consistency that we need out of Washington.

Boling:
I heard some of those same questions about Branson and about Bezos. Sirisha
Bandla, who flew with Richard Branson, if you notice she pulls a device out of
her pocket. She’s conducting an experiment on that flight right there. And it’s
an agricultural experiment, right? And Mike, you talked about how things that
we can learn, even in four minutes in microgravity, could lead toward ways to
help improve food deserts in this country, in neighborhoods around the country,
around the world.

And
so these systems that are being developed by these folks, sure, a few are going
to use that for flights, but they’ve already been doing research on board these
vehicles. And without the interest of Bezos and Branson and Musk, we wouldn’t
be, I think, as further along in some of these developments.

Weinzierl:
Maybe I’ll just jump in too. This is an important topic, so we all want to talk
about it. I think your question is well poised. This is maybe a simplified way
of talking about it. But sometimes when people ask me these sorts of questions,
I talk about us going to space for ourselves, for our kids, and for our
grandkids. And in that sense, ourselves is the role it plays in our economy, in
our lives, every day, like Mike was talking about. And for our kids, it’s the
sort of stuff about climate change and other major problems we know we face. We
can’t possibly solve them as well, if not from space.

But
the third part, the grandkids or beyond is that, you know, in the ’60s, there
was a magic of space. There was a passion of space as well. And I think, if you
look at society today, the lack of a frontier on earth is — I think that’s a
spiritual problem at some level for people that they want — humans love to
explore, and space does still offer that. So being able to tap into that a
little bit more, which I know is what Bezos and Musk and Branson are trying to
do. So if we can also lean on that, I think those three parts together could be
really powerful.

Boling: You know, the economist for NASA, Alex MacDonald, has a great book, The Long Space Age, and it was really quite an eye-opener to how long space exploration has been happening. And some of the same reasons that it was happening in the 1800s and the 1900s. Those same two reasons cover a lot of the reasons why we do it today. The signaling value, right, of, you know, look at my technical prowess as a nation or if you’re a brand, you’re seeing a lot of brand involvement on board space vehicles. They want to be associated with space. They want to be associated with this spirit of discovery. And so you’re seeing the branding aspect associated with the signaling value. 

Then
the intrinsic value of why we do this and what are we going to learn. And I
think we’re still going to need those two reasons to support commercial LEO
destinations and to support, you know, research going forward. And I think it’s
important that if a billionaire wants to pay $55 million to go to space and
take some experiments along with him or her, I still think that’s an okay
thing. That’s a good thing.

We’ve mentioned the number of
companies interested in conducting business in space. How does that play out
globally? How does that play out in Europe, in Asia? Are these primarily
American companies interested in doing business in space? Or is this a global
phenomenon that maybe is most active here, but it’s really kind of active, you
know, across the world?

Roth:
I would say what you said there at the end is very accurate. I think it’s a
global phenomenon, but it’s certainly more prevalent in the United States. And
one of the reasons is you see is the access to equity in the US, it tends to be
much better than other countries’ startup companies have in terms of access to
equity. And that obviously makes a big difference. If you can even get a small
amount of funding, a $5 million or $10 million start, it really allows you to
start building a business. And I think in the US, there’s much more ability to
raise those kind of funds. 

But
I’ll tell you, we found some companies in Japan, we found companies in multiple
countries that have that same kind of innovative spirit and the desire to do
the same kind of things that the companies in the US are doing. In fact, in
Japan, we found two or three companies with very unique ideas about commercial
businesses that they might be able to execute in low Earth orbit in areas like
entertainment and different kinds of tourism-type capability. I would say it’s
certainly a global phenomenon. And we’re trying to tap into that because we
think to be successful, it really is going to have to be a global movement.
It’s not just going to be a US-based movement.

Gold:
Yeah. I agree that it’s a global phenomenon, but one that is currently being
led by the United States. And the reason for that, I think, goes back to a
previous question you asked about the role of government. For all the
complaining that some of us might do that we’re not getting enough support, at
NASA, Department of Defense, we’ve really seen our government agencies and I
think NASA, in particular, focus on enabling commercial capabilities. And I
think this is as important a revolution, in terms of procurement methodology
and policy, than anything that will ever happen, technically, because it
affects everything where NASA is looking, not only to meet a particular agency
need but to enable a new industry, to enable new technologies, again, to be a
catalyst for commercial change.

And
again, we saw that with the COTS and CRS programs to launch cargo to the International
Space Station, that not only did NASA get cargo launched but it created an
entire business ecosystem that spawned a new industry and brought launches back
overseas. The government here in the US has been very active; we’re seeing
other governments, you know, become that way. You know, frankly, we’re fighting
subsidies in many areas, but we are seeing the innovations and the desire to
participate that we’ve always seen in space. It’s always been an international
program for the International Space Station itself and all the countries who
want to participate. And as John mentions, there’s terrific innovations and
desire to create new ways to be a part of the space industry that we’re seeing
from overseas.

But
America’s leading right now due, in no small part, to the way that the
government has encouraged and supported it. And we need to continue and
accelerate that so that we can get these new innovations, get these new
technologies, and ensure that we remain in the lead and that the future is even
brighter than what we’re envisioning now.

We have a couple of questions from
our viewers, our listeners. One is a highly specific question for John Roth
about the LIFE habitat systems. What are those things made out of, and can you
hook them all together and make a giant one?

Roth: Yeah. It’s a soft goods structure. Like I said, it’s an inflatable. And we’re doing this in partnership with ILC Dover, who is our soft goods provider. And we’ve been developing this for a number of years under a NASA contract called NextSTEP-2, which is funding multiple companies under various BAAs to do development of kind of game-changing technologies that are going to be needed for not only LEO but the moon and Mars. 

And
yes, they can be kind of ganged together. Our space station concept, you’ll
see, we have multiple modules. The idea is that we’re fitting the largest
habitat that we can fit, deflated, into a five-meter fairing to give us launch
options.

We
don’t want to have to launch on SLS, for example. So what we want to do is have
the option to launch on any standard five-meter fairing. So what we designed is
a larger structure that can then inflate in orbit to 27 feet in diameter. It’s
a three-story tall structure. But we can certainly have multiple modules
attached to the space station. 

We’ve
thought all along that the development of the economy is not going to be as
fast as maybe some of us would like so we had to make it expandable. We have to
be able to grow to meet the growing demand of customers in space. The idea is
to have a backbone in space that we can add multiple modules to. And we want to
go with an open system architecture. Those all don’t have to be LIFE habitats.

We
could have a company that’s developing our hard structure manufacturing
facility that wants to attach to the space station. And we’re happy to let them
do that. We want to be able to have everybody come and play. We want to use the
international docking system standard. We want to use standard interfaces on
everything that we do and be able to have other vehicles dock to our space
station. It doesn’t have to be a Dream Chaser. It could be a SpaceX Dragon; it
could be a Boeing CST 100. We want to create an open-system architecture
because we think that’s the only way that we’re truly going to be able to have
a commercial LEO economy.

I have another viewer question for
Matt Weinzierl. They said that many of these studies they think are overly
generous at how they look at the projections of the space economy in the
future. There’s the person versus sort of double counting. In your own classes,
how do you teach these projections? How does one even begin to think about what
the economy could look like down the road, the space economy look like down the
road?

Weinzierl:
Sure. So there’s a technical economist side of that question, I think, which is
if we’re trying to actually measure the size of the space sector, that’s a very
complicated thing to decide, which is lots of little choices in there. And
double counting is for sure an issue, right? Anyone who knows — who’s thought
about GDP accounting knows there’s a ton of issues in that and this is just
kind of a subset or a related set of issues for that. And so, there have been
careful studies done which put the size of the space sector at more like 100
and some billion, rather than 300. I think reasonable people can disagree about
some of those choices.

The
one thing I would say about are we overgenerous and therefore overoptimistic is
that the vast majority of that sector, no matter how you count it, as Mike, I
think, mentioned earlier, is still focused on the satellite sector, right?
Like, the satellites are where most of the meat is and most of the money is in
the past and present of the space sector. But a lot of the projections, going
forward, are outside the least existing satellite sector. So maybe they’re about
growth of the internet and how that feeds through satellites, but they’re also
about the space stations and so on that we’ve been talking about in space
tourism, where the uncertainty bands are just so enormous that I wouldn’t
really put a lot of stake in any particular one projection. Rather, what are
the different possible paths we might think about? What are the key steps we
need to drive the trend lines up and not get too hung up on whether it’s a
trillion or a trillion and a half or 600 billion in 15, 20 years?

All right. That’s great. All
right. Now, I hope I’ve given everyone enough time to think about that
question. Matt, I’ll let you answer that last. I will just go in the order.
Again, what does this look like in 25 years? That’s a pretty good chunk of
time. You can talk specifically about your business, a broader vision. I’ll
start with John Roth.

Roth:
Yeah. I really see us having a lot of people living and working in space in 25
years, and not only in low Earth orbit, but I think we’ll have a lunar habitat
by then. In our inflatable habitat, we’ve looked quite a bit at what it would
take to add that on the moon. And Mike and Rich and other companies are looking
at in situ resource utilization, so how do you have those resources on the
moon? NASA is looking at putting nuclear power on the surface of the moon to
drive a habitat economy. So I think in 25 years, it is not at all out of the
imagination to say that we’re not only going to have multiple space stations in
low Earth orbit, probably in different locations in low Earth orbit, you’ll
have a moon base. And you’ll be very seriously looking at going to Mars. You
won’t be inhabiting Mars yet, but you’ll be looking very seriously at missions
to Mars.

Rich, what do you think?

Boling:
I really agree with John. I think there’s going to be people certainly in low
Earth orbit and I think a really healthy number of people on the moon as well.
And, you know, just like in 1969, who would have imagined a world with
smartphones and all the world and the ecosystem built around things like that?
So, to a great extent, it’s hard for me to imagine what that world might be
like. I’m optimistic. I think it’d be a good one. 

But
whatever it looks like, whatever the details are, I think Techshot will still
be there helping people live and work in space, making them happy, healthy, and
productive in space, whether that’s things to work on, ways to entertain them,
ways to keep them healthy. We’re going to be there, and we’re going to be a
part of that.

Mike, what’s the vision here? What
is it going to look like?

Gold:
Let me begin at the Earth orbit and work my way out. I think we’ll see a
satellite industry that is transformed, where satellites now, again, construct
themselves, leveraging terrific Redwire technology, where they’re building
their own arrays. They’re transforming themselves later on to serve different
missions. And because of that incredible capability, we’ve avoided the problem
of conjunctions and debris in low Earth orbit and beyond because of those
capabilities. And then, as we go forward to the moon, we see space stations,
not only in low Earth orbit, like life station, but we see them around the
moon. And we see manufacturing moving from Earth into space.

That
space is no longer just a domain of communications. We’re building things in
space, whether that’s ZBLAN fiber or organs, like Rich’s describing. Space has
become a manufacturing zone. While NASA and the international partners push the
envelope of exploration even further, as John mentioned, those inflatable
habitats are lighter than traditional systems. They have better protection
against solar flares and cosmic rays so they’re better for beyond LEO. And
within that span, we’re going to see those habitats. And you know, hopefully,
powered by Redwire iROSAs moving forward for a historic first human mission to
Mars to establish a colony there.

We’ll finish with Matt, and feel
free to talk about asteroid mining.

Weinzierl:
I won’t repeat what the other folks said. I think the notion of people,
satellites, at a whole other level manufacturing, all being big stories going
forward. I hope and expect that those are probably three of the key areas of
growth. 

So
two things that haven’t been said as much. One, Mike hinted at this a little
with debris, which is I think, you know, from an economist standpoint, there’s
some big problems or challenges facing the space sector, both in terms of
capturing positive things that we call externalities or spillovers across
companies and preventing the negative ones from causing too much trouble.

I’m
pretty optimistic, though, that those will get solved, or at least managed over
the next 25 years in the sense that there’s huge piles of money at stake in
solving these. And there aren’t that many actors — there are a lot of actors,
but it’s still a relatively small industry that I think everybody wants to keep
these things in check. So I’m pretty optimistic about those. 

And
then I’ll just throw in the last part, which I guess is a economist’s favorite
thing to say, which is I would not be surprised if, in 25 years, the biggest
story is something none of us have even mentioned today, right? I think we just
got to keep that in mind.

Matt, that’s outstanding. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Let me thank John Roth of Sierra Space, Rich Boling of Techshot, Mike Gold of Redwire Space, and Matt Weinzierl of Harvard Business. Thanks. And thanks to the viewers, and please go to our AEI events page for other fantastically interesting events. Thank you.

The post The economy of outer space: My long-read Q&A with John Roth, Rich Boling, Mike Gold, & Matthew Weinzierl appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.