Washington Business Fall 2019 | Washington Business | Page 35

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steadily declined and American astronauts were left to hitch rides
to the space station on the Russian Soyuz.
As the NASA-centric model of space exploration faded,
though, private sector leadership emerged. The aerospace
ecosystem fostered by Boeing made Washington a logical place
for the sector to grow, says Kelly Maloney, former head of the
Aerospace Futures Alliance.
Visionary billionaires have played a key role here, Thibedeau says.
The PSRC space economy report lists Bezos’s Blue Origin as the
largest core space employer, with 1,100 employees. Musk’s SpaceX
and California-based Aerojet Rocketdyne are also key players. (See
chart on page 36.)
unlimited potential
“We are becoming a space-faring civilization,” Maloney says.
“That is the future.” It’s hard to believe, but impossible to doubt.
Separating the space economy from the terrestrial economy
increasingly becomes an arbitrary and artificial exercise. The
distinction vanishes.
“The future space industries are going to be tourism, asteroid
mining, an extension and expansion of stuff we’re doing already,
like GPS and satellite communications,” Thibedeau says. “There
are companies that are working to make it cheaper and cheaper
to get into space. That’s just going to open up a huge platform of
opportunities.… like the Internet, it’s going to be a platform for
innovation.”
“With space, it’s a little bit of a Venn diagram
between our aerospace and our IT industry.”

— Jason Thibedeau, principal economic development manager,
Puget Sound Regional Council
Brown also sees a seamless economic horizon. The “big missions”
to the moon or Mars capture a lot of attention, she says. But she
also mentions the host of other activities — like satellite mega-
constellations with uses ranging from telecommunications to
national security — that Washington space companies are exploring.
The financial stakes are as limitless as the vision. Morgan Stanley
has speculated that the current global space industry could grow to
$1.1 trillion by 2040, more than tripling the current $350 billion.
another moon shot
Last March, Vice President Mike Pence announced the
administration’s intent to land astronauts on the moon, Project
Artemis, in five years. The commitment has the potential for creating
new synergies and opportunities here. Blue Origin, for example, has
been awarded three contracts for work on the Artemis moon project.
The significant investments from space-oriented billionaires,
like Allen, Musk, Bezos, and Richard Branson, have been crucial
to the continued growth of the industry. But as no less than Bezos
himself has said, the expense and scale of the project requires
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