On April 3, 2024, a tiny capsule created by a business that most people were unaware of plummeted from the sky over the Utah desert, landing in a dust cloud. There were crystals grown in microgravity that may find use in semiconductors, fiber optic cables with optical qualities impossible to produce in Earth’s gravity, and biological samples that scientists are still examining. Varda Space Industries was the business. The capsule had been in orbit. And what it brought back was, according to any reasonable interpretation at the time, the first evidence that space is a place to create and market goods rather than merely a place to visit.
There wasn’t much coverage of that event. The majority of the financial media was preoccupied with something else. However, the landing was perceived as more than just a technical achievement in the strategy departments of the aerospace companies and in the offices of the venture capital firms that had supported Varda. It appeared as a data point in a massive economic dispute that is currently growing more quickly than the majority of governments are equipped to handle.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Current space economy value | ~$596–630 billion (2023–2024 estimates, Norton Rose Fulbright / Brookings) active |
| Projected value by 2035 | $1.8 trillion (World Economic Forum, Brookings); conservative estimate $1.4 trillion (McKinsey) — ~9% annual growth rate growing |
| Morgan Stanley long-term forecast | $2.7 trillion by 2050 — some analysts consider this conservative by an order of magnitude |
| Private investment (2025) | $55.3 billion poured into 431 space-sector companies — a 65% increase vs. 2024 surging |
| Total private capital since 2015 | Over $47 billion; ~80% equity/venture capital |
| Government space spending (2024) | $135 billion globally; $73 billion (54%) allocated to defence-related activities |
| Key private players | SpaceX (Starlink), Amazon (Kuiper), Varda Space Industries, Blue Origin, Capella Space; VC funds including Seraphim Capital, Space Capital |
| Varda Space milestone (April 2024) | First commercial return of manufactured goods from orbit — fiber optics, microgravity crystals, biological samples |
| Governance framework | Outer Space Treaty (1967) — prohibits national sovereignty claims; silent on private commercial extraction and ownership outdated |
| Space tourism market forecast | $4–6 billion by 2035; space mining and pharmaceutical manufacturing emerging as longer-term revenue streams |
| Official reference | Brookings: Industrial policy for the final frontier (brookings.edu, Sept 2025) |
Depending on whose methodology you trust, the current value of the global space economy ranges from $596 billion to $630 billion. Estimates from the World Economic Forum, Brookings, and McKinsey converge on a figure of about $1.8 trillion by 2035, growing at about 9 percent annually, which is almost twice the anticipated rate of global GDP growth over the same period.
However, there is some disagreement regarding the ceiling. Some space economists believe Morgan Stanley’s longer-range estimate of $2.7 trillion by 2050 is an order of magnitude too conservative. Last year, 431 companies in the sector received $55.3 billion in private investment, a 65 percent increase over 2024. The money isn’t as speculative as it used to be. It is adhering to actual infrastructure that is already producing actual income.
Currently, satellites provide the majority of that revenue. Agriculture companies in Iowa, logistics companies in Rotterdam, and insurance underwriters in London all rely on communications, GPS, Earth observation, and weather monitoring on a daily basis without even realizing it.
These are not futuristic applications. Low-Earth-orbit satellite service is already used by over 14% of rural broadband customers in New Zealand. Expansion in lower-income markets is constrained by cost rather than technical issues. Institutions and emergency services can afford equipment and monthly service fees in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, but smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, who stand to gain the most from dependable connectivity, cannot yet afford these costs.
According to MIT analysts, anticipated cost reductions over the next ten years could increase affordability from roughly 15% of the world’s underconnected population to as much as 60%. There is a market for that, and serious people are working toward it.
The economics of reaching orbit have actually changed, which sets the current era apart from the space boosterism of earlier decades. In 2010, projects that would have cost between $40 and $50 billion can now be completed for a fraction of that amount.
Satellite constellations requiring thousands of spacecraft are now financially feasible rather than just theoretically intriguing due to cost reductions brought about by reusable launch vehicles, miniaturized satellites, and the development of a commercial supply chain. This is the same dynamic that made the internet affordable enough for businesses and regular people to build upon: once the cost of infrastructure fell below a certain point, everything picked up speed.
However, this is the point at which the story truly becomes complex, and the legal and governance issues begin to matter in ways that the financial forecasts typically underestimate. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is the fundamental agreement that governs human activity in space. Its main clause, which states that no country may claim sovereignty over the Moon, planets, or any other celestial body, was intended to stop a Cold War arms race from spreading into orbit.
It was written at a time when only the US and the USSR were launching anything. What happens when a private company mines an asteroid, produces pharmaceuticals in microgravity, or stakes a position in a particularly valuable orbital slot above the equator is something it does not clearly address. It is getting more and more costly to ignore the treaty’s silence on these issues.
The United States has taken unilateral action to close that gap. Although the space itself cannot be owned, the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 granted American businesses the right to own the resources they extract from space, a distinction that pleases some lawyers and annoys others.
A new FAA position dedicated to commercial space transportation was established in August 2025 when President Trump signed an executive order simplifying environmental reviews and launch requirements for commercial space development. The message was very clear: Washington is prepared to shift the regulatory landscape in order to place American businesses at the forefront of whatever economy emerges from orbit.
Observing all of this, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the analogy to the early internet is flawed in one significant way. Data centers in suburban New Jersey, server farms in Oregon, and cables beneath oceans made up the terrestrial infrastructure when the web took off. Despite their flaws, governments had set up legal frameworks for everything. This is not the case with orbital real estate. In contrast to terrestrial infrastructure, it is limited.
The most valuable positions—geostationary slots directly above the equator, low-Earth-orbit altitudes with good coverage characteristics—are actually hard to come by, and the first entity to occupy them gains an advantage that is hard to overcome. Before taking over as the primary occupant of low-Earth orbit, SpaceX did not request permission. It launched after submitting applications and paying fees. The governance frameworks that could have influenced those choices more consciously were not quick enough, precise enough, or well-coordinated enough to keep up.
Before the race for position becomes irreversible, it’s still unclear if the international community will come up with a cogent framework for managing orbital commons or if the issue will just be resolved by whoever has the cheapest rockets and the quickest regulatory approval procedures. The economics are outstanding. The governance process is ongoing. And somewhere in a lab, the Varda Space capsule is subtly arguing that this is just the beginning.
