In the last week I've been in a couple very good conversations with people about developing the "space economy." And it's all good; from private launch companies like Orbital and SpaceX to cohorts of enthusiasts willing to die on Mars in the name of exploration and reality television ratings. But there's one thing people have been missing... the space economy isn't about going there and bringing things back, it's about going there, in-situ resource utilization and then staying there a while.
So it's great when we can launch people to the ISS to research what happens to pumpkin seeds in zero-g, but until they can order a pizza for delivery in LEO, we don't really have a space economy. At best, we have a terrestrial economy with brief forays into orbit. Until we have enough development of non-terrestrial resources that the majority of productive activity is for the benefit of other non-terrestrial development, we're not going to have a space economy.
Just Sayin'.
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