The Future of the Space Economy with Mo Islam

Village Global's Solarpunk

Mo Islam (@itsmoislam), co-founder of Payload Space, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- There is no doubt that we are in the early stages of the space economy, Mo says.
- The cost to go to Mars will be paid many times over by the young engineers who will be inspired by the mission.
- There are three main buckets in the space economy: space for earth (companies creating products for humans on earth via their space endeavors), space for space (companies serving other companies in space) and beyond earth (“science fiction”-type activities like colonization, mining, and exploration).
- The International Space Station cost $100B to build.
- SpaceX built the Falcon 9 at 1/10th the cost that NASA estimated.
- In the 1960s there were only two space programs but now there are 80+ and they are all trying to get an economic return on investment.
- Mo’s contrarian take is that launch is actually underhyped. Very few companies have a launch vehicle that has made it to orbit with a significant payload capacity.
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