How will you participate in the Space Gold-Rush?
Millions were watching the African eclipse on summer solstice yesterday. In case you missed it, re-live it on ESA’s page here. Space is not only fascinating to us for its grandeur and awesomeness which inspires our imagination. It is also fueling economic aspirations. Individuals and Organizations alike are striving to participate in the third millenium’s gold rush: Space Exploration.
You can feel the space-fever everywhere! What are your options to participate?
Small Money — If you have small money to invest you can check investment advice from popular platforms like the Motley Fool suggesting tech and mining stocks to participate in a trillion-dollar industry.
Serious Money — For bigger money, you can look through the Early Stage funding round alongside the many Space VCs on Crunchbase — 63 recent fundings under ‘Satellite Communications’ alone with a total amount of nearly 3 billion.
No Money — Don’t despair! There are many grant programs around that will help you to get started with your own space venture. Let’s just have a look at what the European Union spends under the Horizon 2020 umbrella. A quick Cordis search (where EU funded results and projects are published) shows over 36.000 results for funded projects containing the word “space”. A little more detailed is the Union’s transparency dashboard which shows that of the roughly €95 billion Europe spent on grant money (and its administration) only about €95 million went to space related projects.
The first thought that comes to mind is also the title of one of my favorite books: “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman”. Maybe I didn’t do the search correctly but that seems like very little money in both absolute and relative terms if you’re looking to become a leading player in space via research and fostering of new space initiatives and companies. However, since it’s spread over 84 grants, you likely can find an upcoming program under which to submit your proposal.
On a related note, a recent study on space mining confirms the attractiveness of the field. Over the coming years until 2027 the US and China are expected to build out their dominance in government funded space exploration. More importantly, 30 commercially funded operations until 2027 are taking a share of the market and focus primarily on lunar exploration. Only 18 go to deeper space with a focus on Mars.
Where will you participate?
Bjoern Holste — Space One
