Amateur Space Commentaries by Jesse

There's been a lot of excitement lately in the space industry, and specifically in the private sector, about mining in outer space. Although launch prices have been coming down drastically thanks to innovative launch companies like SpaceX, commercial exploitation of space has been held back by high launch costs that have limited space enterprises to highly profitable, unique services such as communications satellites. However, these same dropping launch prices are enabling a wider range of business activities in space, coupled with NASA opening the ISS to business [ link ], and multiple companies seeking to start their own private space stations for business opportunities (i.e. Axiom Space, Bigelow Aerospace). Looming business prospects in low Earth orbit will require basic resources such as oxygen, water, and propellant, as well as raw materials for orbital industries. Additive manufacturing has already been demonstrated in space, and has the potential to create extremely high q...