Tracking space debris is a growing business
economist.com
economist.com
> Customers include insurers keen to see if policyholders fly their satellites as safely as they claim to.
> Northstar, for example, plans to charge annual subscriptions of between $10m and $100m.
> Naturally, this orbital-tracking technology has military value as well.
I think most of these companies are assuming they can get big government contracts once this becomes a big enough problem. Lockheed Martin has Space Fence (https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/space-fence.ht...) which was presumably funded by a government contract
There are limitless applications in satellite launch and operation, debris tracking, asteroid mining, defense, research contracts, tourism.
- With private enterprise in space, you will be able to sell such data to insurance companies, maybe.
- You can sell the data to governments who want to have it for any form of control reasons.
- Science can use that data for exploration, this could potentially lead to breakthroughs, which in turn could lead to markets whose players depend on your data. Or just science labs are buying your data.
...and they make us subscribe to a rundle for the rest of our lives to keep it from hitting us.
"Earth, and life on it." - brought to you by Facebook, probably
Space launch is a contemporary example of an important capability that the US has demonstrated they're happy to mostly hand off to private enterprises (mainly SpaceX these days).