When Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, he believed he had less than a 10% chance of being successful as a business. “I just accepted that I would probably lose everything,” he said in 2016, “but that maybe we would make some progress if we could just move the ball forward. Even if we die, maybe we do. Another company could take over. SpaceX’s advancements have indeed spawned a growing space economy and revived the manufacturing base south of Los Angeles, where the first generation of aerospace companies helped humans land on moon. In 2020, global space activities generated $ 447 billion, with commercial work accounting for nearly 80%. “Spending money in space is actually a way to increase economy on Earth in a very, very efficient way, “says Sinéad O’Sullivan, a self-proclaimed” interplanetary economist “at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School. O’Sullivan notes, for example, that every dollar the government spends e in the space industry translates into nearly $ 50 in societal value.

Suborbital tourism grabbed the headlines, but it eclipsed the infrastructure being built. According to research by venture capital firm Space Capital, investors have invested nearly $ 25 billion in hundreds of aerospace startups in the first nine months of 2021. This money funds things like small satellites that can provide high resolution images of the Earth to identify methane leaks. contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. On the ground, new methods of creating and launching the rockets that send these satellites into space are designed to be lighter, cheaper and even portable, thanks to advances in 3D printing, which could have far-reaching implications. for all manufacturing.

The companies we feature here – ABL Space Systems, Relativity Space, and Millennium Space Systems – have banded together south of LA Call it the new Rocket Row, or Space Beach, as the locals do. They work to advance production techniques as well as improve the frequency and flexibility of orbital missions. As Musk predicted, success in this area is not guaranteed. But these companies are using space to try to improve life on Earth and thus push the boundaries of human experience.