U.S. Companies Out to Conquer Space

From its very beginnings, the conquest of space was always a product of inter-state rivalry, with the USA (and subsequently Russia) and France in the forefront. As such, it was publicly funded (mainly out of defence budgets). With the end of the Cold War and in a context of repeated and protracted economic crises, public investment in this field is no longer a priority for the leading states in the sector (with the possible exception of China that has entered the ring more recently). However, the conquest of space is still the stuff of dreams and we have seen a new phenomenon in the last few years, which is the arrival on the scene of players from the private –and particularly the digital– sector, resolved to invest in space, with the aim, among other things, of making it accessible to a wider public. This move towards the development of a private space sector has come to be known as “NewSpace”. Based on enormously wealthy players, who are motivated by the prospects of “democratizing” space and also by the various possibilities offered by the development of the technologies concerned (satellites, communications, geo-localization etc.), NewSpace might well, as this article shows, revolutionize the sector and the approach of the various players in it.