Uploaded July 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
The Commercial Space Industry is Booming! But how did we get here? In this video I’ll pinpoint several key events that fueled this exploding industry. One of the first vital events that kickstarted the new space race was the launch of the Xprize Foundation in 1996, which would present $10 million to the first team to successfully launch a reusable crewed spacecraft. While this goal wasn’t met in the timeframe specified, it sparked the companies that would carry the torch today. Then, the US government drafted the Commercial Space Act of 1998, which encouraged commercial partners to expand the industry, provided access to the International Space Station, and gave them the freedom to expand space capabilities into more private ventures.
In 2004, SpaceShipOne from Virgin Galactic, the first commercial crewed spaceship, reached space, opening the floodgates for attempts by others.
Then, After this, President George W. Bush signed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, or H.R. 5382, which would ultimately allow customers to ride on suborbital launch vehicles at their own risk. Now this is actually a huge topic in space policy right now, but we’ll get to that in a different video.
After many explosions and failures resulting in payload loss, in 2008 SpaceX conducted the first successful launch of a liquid fueled rocket in Falcon 1 to reach orbit. Four years later, SpaceX also became the first private company to dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station with its Dragon capsule (Dunbar, 2012). Then in 2015, President Barack Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, or SPACE Act of 2015, which allowed American companies to “own material resources extracted in outer space”. Basically, you find a moon or Mars rock, it no longer belongs to your government. You can keep it. But not only Moon rocks, this opens up possibilities for Asteroid Mining companies and belters!
Lastly, the most recent notable accomplishment was the successful launch and return of humans to and from the International Space Station by SpaceX with their Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020. With Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin continuing to land successful missions, launching their CEOs into space on their own rockets this week, and SpaceX receiving the contract to build the next Lunar lander, the expansion of the commercial space industry is only beginning.
Now, what about the future though? Are we just gonna watch Bezos, Branson and Musk play cat and mouse for 3 decades? What is coming? I’ll touch on a few.
Future Plans for Commercial Spaceflight
Commercial spaceflight has promising applications not only for in-space activities, but also for the economic impact it will have on Earth. Call it the most boring part of space travel, but hear me out. Five of the main areas we will see commercial activities in space include tourism, scientific research, satellite servicing, telecommunications and asteroid mining. While SpaceX is the only commercial company to bring astronauts to the ISS and back, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are not far behind with their human-rated capsules and rockets. In addition to getting the astronauts to space, they will soon have a place to stay. Axiom is developing a space station to build off of the ISS and to eventually serve as its own hotel and research station in orbit. Additionally, Having commercial partners develop launch capabilities will also allow astronomers to more affordably and efficiently launch telescopes to orbits behind the Moon and other Lagrange points for more radio-silent observations.
We’ve already seen the explosion of telecommunications satellite constellations in the last 5 years with Starlink, OneWeb and Project Kuiper, as well as recently funded companies like Rogue Space Systems that are basically developing real life R2D2s, or spacecraft to service and maintain these satellites already in orbit. Lastly, companies such as Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries are currently developing technologies to mine asteroids and near Earth objects for raw materials in the near future.
So here is a breakdown
Some examples of companies with human-rated Launch capabilities are:
SpaceX
Blue Origin
Virgin Galactic
Tourism?
Axiom Space
Space Perspective
Telecommunications
Starlink
Project Kuiper
Satellite Servicing
Rogue Space Systems
Thanks for watching! Don’t forget to subscribe to see more videos like this and I’ll see you next time!
The Commercial Space Industry is Booming! But how did we get here? In this video I’ll pinpoint several key events that fueled this exploding industry. One of the first vital events that kickstarted the new space race was the launch of the Xprize Foundation in 1996, which would present $10 million to the first team to successfully launch a reusable crewed spacecraft. While this goal wasn’t met in the timeframe specified, it sparked the companies that would carry the torch today. Then, the US government drafted the Commercial Space Act of 1998, which encouraged commercial partners to expand the industry, provided access to the International Space Station, and gave them the freedom to expand space capabilities into more private ventures.
In 2004, SpaceShipOne from Virgin Galactic, the first commercial crewed spaceship, reached space, opening the floodgates for attempts by others.
Then, After this, President George W. Bush signed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, or H.R. 5382, which would ultimately allow customers to ride on suborbital launch vehicles at their own risk. Now this is actually a huge topic in space policy right now, but we’ll get to that in a different video.
After many explosions and failures resulting in payload loss, in 2008 SpaceX conducted the first successful launch of a liquid fueled rocket in Falcon 1 to reach orbit. Four years later, SpaceX also became the first private company to dock a spacecraft to the International Space Station with its Dragon capsule (Dunbar, 2012). Then in 2015, President Barack Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, or SPACE Act of 2015, which allowed American companies to “own material resources extracted in outer space”. Basically, you find a moon or Mars rock, it no longer belongs to your government. You can keep it. But not only Moon rocks, this opens up possibilities for Asteroid Mining companies and belters!
Lastly, the most recent notable accomplishment was the successful launch and return of humans to and from the International Space Station by SpaceX with their Falcon 9 rocket on May 30, 2020. With Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin continuing to land successful missions, launching their CEOs into space on their own rockets this week, and SpaceX receiving the contract to build the next Lunar lander, the expansion of the commercial space industry is only beginning.
Now, what about the future though? Are we just gonna watch Bezos, Branson and Musk play cat and mouse for 3 decades? What is coming? I’ll touch on a few.
Future Plans for Commercial Spaceflight
Commercial spaceflight has promising applications not only for in-space activities, but also for the economic impact it will have on Earth. Call it the most boring part of space travel, but hear me out. Five of the main areas we will see commercial activities in space include tourism, scientific research, satellite servicing, telecommunications and asteroid mining. While SpaceX is the only commercial company to bring astronauts to the ISS and back, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are not far behind with their human-rated capsules and rockets. In addition to getting the astronauts to space, they will soon have a place to stay. Axiom is developing a space station to build off of the ISS and to eventually serve as its own hotel and research station in orbit. Additionally, Having commercial partners develop launch capabilities will also allow astronomers to more affordably and efficiently launch telescopes to orbits behind the Moon and other Lagrange points for more radio-silent observations.
We’ve already seen the explosion of telecommunications satellite constellations in the last 5 years with Starlink, OneWeb and Project Kuiper, as well as recently funded companies like Rogue Space Systems that are basically developing real life R2D2s, or spacecraft to service and maintain these satellites already in orbit. Lastly, companies such as Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries are currently developing technologies to mine asteroids and near Earth objects for raw materials in the near future.
So here is a breakdown
Some examples of companies with human-rated Launch capabilities are:
SpaceX
Blue Origin
Virgin Galactic
Tourism?
Axiom Space
Space Perspective
Telecommunications
Starlink
Project Kuiper
Satellite Servicing
Rogue Space Systems
Thanks for watching! Don’t forget to subscribe to see more videos like this and I’ll see you next time!
