If you are like me, the last time you toured the various aspects of outer space was likely during a lecture in a high school science class. As you learn more now about what is happening in outer space today and you explore the economic ramifications, you will find it useful to refresh your familiarity with the basic parts of the "space-based ecosystem."
These days Wikipedia makes the matter easy to study. Using the Wikipedia categories and links, here are the terms you will need to know to follow the growth of investment in space and its impact on you and your community followed by a chronology history of our activities in space now being officially declassified.
SPACE: A CHRONOLOGY
1942
The German V2 is the first rocket to reach 100km from the Earth’s surface (the boundary of space). The rocket was designed by Wernher von Braun, who later worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the creator of the rockets that went to the moon.
1947
The first animals are launched into space to study the effects of space travel on animals.
1957
Russia launches the first satellite into space, Sputnik 1.
1961
Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space.
1962
The first communications satellite is launched into orbit.
1963
President John F. Kennedy promises the world that the United States would land men on the moon before 1970.
1969
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take "one small step" and became the first men on the moon.
1970
China launches its first satellite.
1971
American astronauts on the fourth, fifth and sixth Apollo missions enjoy the use of a moon car to explore the moon.
The first space station is launched.
1972
The Landsat program begins the longest running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth.
1973
The Russian space probe Mars 2 explores Mars, the fourth planet of the solar system.
1977
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are launched to study our outer Solar System.
1979
The European Space Agency's (ESA) first space launch takes place.
1981
The first space shuttle is launched. The shuttle is designed to be re-used for up to (100) visits to space in an attempt to make space travel less expensive.
1986
The MIR space station is built in sections, each piece launched by a rocket and then joined together in orbit. MIR was destroyed in 2001 when it burned as it crashed back towards earth.
1990
The Hubble Space Telescope is launched into low Earth orbit.
1994
The first US global positioning satellite system (GPS) constellation is launched.
1998
The International Space Station is launched.
2000
The first permanent crew is moved into the International Space Station (ISS), where crews of astronauts have been living continuously ever since.
2004
SpaceShipOne makes the first-ever privately funded manned space flight.
2008
SpaceX becomes the first company to launch a privately funded liquid-fueled rocket into Orbit, the Falcon 1.
2011
The Russian navigation satellite system GLONASS goes global.
2012
Voyager 1 indicates that it has become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space.
2014
Launched in 2004, the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe reaches Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
2015
China aims to land Chang'e-4 probe on far side of moon.
2016
Voyager 2 is expected to enter interstellar space.
2016-2019
The EU and ESA's global navigation satellite system Galileo is expected to go operational, offering an alternative high-precision positioning system independent from the US GPS and Russian GLONASS systems.
2025-2030
The U.S. National Space Policy of 2010 has set out goals for space exploration: to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to the planet Mars in the 2030s.
More:
The big money right now is in satellites - or at least in the data flowing through them. Transmission of data is the function in space that can support commercial enterprise without government support. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, we the people of the world have launched 6,700 satellites, of which 1,306 were operational as of June 2015. Of these, 548 are American, 129 are Russian, and 113 are Chinese. With a new generation of miniaturized satellites available, approximately 300 satellites are scheduled for launching in 2016. Global satellite industry revenues as of 2013 were approximately $200 billion, growing at an annual rate of 3 percent.
A space observatory is any instrument (such as the Hubble telescope) in space used for observation of outer space.
Space exploration is the ongoing discovery of celestial structures in outer space. Although the study of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, the physical exploration of space is more widely conducted by unmanned, robotic probes and by human spaceflight. Space exploration is risky and expensive - requiring government funding.
Asteroids are minor planets. The term asteroid has historically been applied to astronomical objects orbiting the Sun that did not show the disc of a planet and were not active comets. Asteroid mining is the exploitation of raw materials from asteroid and near-Earth objects. Minerals and volatiles could be mined first, then be used in space or taken back to Earth, including base and precious metals; as well as water and oxygen taken aloft to sustain astronauts; as well as hydrogen, ammonia, and oxygen for use as rocket propellant. Asteroid mining is in the news as a result of the US Congress passing the Space Act of 2015, which permits private companies to claim materials mined on asteroids as their own private property.
Sourcing resources in space to construct space-based infrastructure is an important step to improving the economics of space exploration and colonization. In situ resources utilization (ISRU) is a term to refer to the collection, processing, storing and use of materials encountered in the course of space exploration that replaces materials that would otherwise be brought from planet Earth.
Space colonization is permanent human habitation off of the planet Earth. The two most common arguments for space colonization investment are survival of human civilization and the biosphere in case of a planetary-scale disaster (natural or man-made), and the vast resources in space for expansion of human society.
Space tourism is space travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. Currently, multiple companies are offering sales of future orbital and suborbital flights. To date, a small number of space tourists have paid approximately $20 million to $40 million for the space travel experience. The last space tourists flew in 2009.
Space weapons are weapons used in space warfare. They include weapons that can attack space systems in orbit (i.e. anti-satellite weapons), attack targets on the earth from space or disable missiles traveling through space. The Outer Space Treaty is a treaty that forms the basis of international law regarding space. The treaty bars governments party to the treaty from placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or otherwise stationing them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications. However, the Treaty does not prohibit the placement of conventional weapons in orbit. The treaty also states that the exploration of outer space shall be done to benefit all countries and shall be free for exploration and use by all the governments of the world. The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet, claiming that they are the common heritage of mankind Article II of the treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means".
OK, so how do we describe the destinations in space?
A suborbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it does not complete one orbital revolution. An object launched from Earth that reaches 100 km (62 mi) above sea level, and then falls back to Earth, is considered a suborbital spaceflight.
An orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To sustain an orbit around the Earth, the flight must be on a free trajectory which has an altitude above 100 kilometers (62 mi).
The Moon is the sole natural satellite of our planet Earth.Interplanetary spaceflight is travel between planets, usually within a single planetary system. In practice, this means spaceflight between the planets of our known Solar System.
Interplanetary spaceflight includes spaceflight to other planets and minor planets or asteroids in the Solar System:
Interstellar travel is the term used for hypothetical travel between stars. Because of the vastness of such distances, interstellar travel would require either great speed or huge travel time, lasting from decades to millennia or longer.
Intergalactic travel is the term used for hypothetical travel between galaxies. Due to the enormous distances between our own galaxy the Milky Way and even its closest neighbors
As of 2015, some 70 government space agencies exist. Thirteen of these have launch capability. Six government space agencies - the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), NASA and the Russian RFSA (Roscosmos) - have full launch capabilities; these include the ability to launch and recover multiple satellites, deploy cryogenic rocket engines and operate extraterrestrial probes. Only three - NASA, the RFSA and the CNSA - have human spaceflight capability.
Expansion of the number of government space programs and total global funding as well as an emphasis on private commercial enterprise in space is attracting a significant increase in private investment in space. A significant amount of activity continues to remain in the traditional defense and government contracts. However, a growing number of startups are focused on radically improving the economics of space travel and creating commercially economic space activities.
Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight) is space travel with a crew aboard the spacecraft. When a spacecraft is crewed, it can be operated directly, as opposed to being remotely operated or autonomous. The first human spaceflight was launched by the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961 as a part of the Vostok program, with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard. Humans have been continuously present in space for 15 years and 59 days on the International Space Station.
A spacecraft is a vehicle, or machine designed to fly in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transport of human and nonhuman cargo.
On a suborbital spaceflight, a spacecraft enters space and then returns to the surface, without having gone into an orbit. For orbital spaceflights, spacecraft enter closed orbits around the Earth or around other celestial bodies. Spacecraft used for human spaceflight carry people on board as crew or passengers from start or on orbit (space stations) only, whereas those used for robotic space missions operate either autonomously or telerobotically. Robotic spacecraft used to support scientific research are space probes. Robotic spacecraft that remain in orbit around a planetary body are artificial satellites. Only a handful of interstellar probes, such as Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and New Horizons, are on trajectories that leave the Solar System.
Orbital spacecraft may or may not ne be recoverable. By method of reentry to Earth, spacecraft may be divided in nonwinged space capsules and winged spaceplanes.
A rocket launch is the takeoff phase of the flight of a rocket. Launches for orbital spaceflights, or launches into interplanetary space, usually start from a fixed location on the ground, but may also be from a floating platform (such as the Sea Launch vessel) or, potentially, from a super-heavy An-225-class airplane.
A spaceport is a site for launching (or receiving) spacecraft. The word spaceport has traditionally been used for sites that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbit or on interplanetary trajectories. However, rocket launch sites for purely sub-orbital flights are sometimes called spaceports, as in recent years new and proposed sites for suborbital human flights have been frequently referred to or named "spaceports." Space stations and proposed future bases on the moon are sometimes called "spaceports," in particular where they are intended as bases for further journeys.
One of the things that inspired me to research investment in space was the steady growth of spaceports I observed while driving long distances throughout America. When Midland, Texas builds a spaceport, you know something is happening!