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There was a time when space exploration seemed like a thing of the past. Since the final Apollo mission blasted off for the Moon over 50 years ago, humanity has not ventured further than low-Earth orbit.
But that’s all changing. Space exploration is back on the agenda, partly driven by the rise of new global space powers to rival the US and Russia. Since the turn of the millennium, the ambitions of China’s space program have accelerated; it has put astronauts into orbit, landed rovers on the Moon and Mars, and constructed a manned space station. India, too, has been making notable progress. In August 2023 it became the first country to land a rover at the lunar south pole, and has launched a probe into solar orbit.
A new space race is underway—and the longer-term ambitions are even grander than before. The US and China both want to establish a permanent presence on the Moon, and are planning crewed missions to Mars.
There’s another crucial difference between this new era of space exploration and the last: The involvement of private enterprise. “Increasingly, private companies are launching rockets, deploying satellites, and undertaking the kinds of orbital activities that not long ago would have been the domain of governments,” says Willem Sels, Global CIO of HSBC Global Private Banking. These companies are winning contracts to supply technology to national space agencies as they embark on their missions. But the private sector is also conducting missions of its own, contributing in a multitude of ways to a marketplace that is on course to be worth more than $1 trillion within two decades.
The emerging space economy comprises new types of businesses that would have been impossible until recently. Many of these use innovative satellites to provide services—wireless internet, say, or advanced imaging—to customers on Earth. Others are more experimental, devising new forms of technology for new applications altogether—and just possibly changing the paradigm of off-world activity in the process.
Investors have taken note, with funding rushing into the sector. “One of the difficulties is that quite often the stocks on the stock market don’t give you much exposure to these ideas, and so you need to go to the private market,” says Sels. “It's one of those examples of where private equity can have a role to some extent in portfolios.” He cautions that those who go down this path should be prepared to play the long game. “This probably needs to be capital that you can put away for a number of years. As the adage has it: People underestimate the things that happen in 10 years, but overestimate what happens in two years.”
So, what are the trends that could become increasingly interesting? This edition of Frontiers shines a light on five big ideas that are transforming space. All of them are enjoying serious venture capital flows and are attracting attention from credible experts. For each one, we’ve interviewed a specialist to hear why they’re excited about the prospects, but also to explore what challenges still need to be solved.
Those stories are:
- Why ‘Living off the land’ will be crucial to the dawning era of space exploration
- Satellites can now show businesses what the human eye can’t see
- Are space-based solar farms the future of clean energy?
- How celestial ‘gas stations’ could unlock the space economy
- Space junk is a huge problem. It’s also a business opportunity
Perhaps it’s no accident that, right now, space seems to have captured imaginations. “It’s been an unusual few years, and many people are wondering about their purpose in life,” says Sels. “Space exploration is about progress and discovery, but on a more philosophical level it’s about meaning—what it means to be human. For entrepreneurs and investors, getting involved in these ideas is often about more than making money, it’s about participating in something more profound.”
To find out more about HSBC Global Private Banking, click here
To find out more about WIRED Consulting, click here
To download the first Frontiers report, click here
