The 5th Industrial Revolution

How space commercialisation has ignited the 5th industrial revolution.

Space, since companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue One have driven media attention to its “cool factor”, has always been an industry silently followed by scientists and academics, but never the big audiences. Thanks to its recent relevance, public interest has increased in not just following the competitive endeavours of these two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, but in understanding why it continues to be government funded, why the super powers like China have taken the lead, and what kind of scientific endeavours the different space agencies are getting involved and collaborating.

Private companies have traditionally sold their products to the various space agencies in the past and some invested into space projects with the aim to amplify the scope of their commercial activities in a near future. That future is finally unfolding and revolutionising twentieth century sectors such as aerospace, telecommunications and even older ones like mining and agriculture. From its beginnings as a secretive, polarised, political weapon of world domination, the space race is today a place of business and it is bound to become the biggest horizon for industry expansion of the 21st century.