We live in another golden age of space exploration: investment increased by 87% throughout 2021

In the 1960s United States they invested 4% of their annual budgets in NASA. You had to get to the Moon before the Russians, and the country was spent 25,800 million dollars of the time in the Apollo program. With inflation that would equate to about $257 billion today.

That golden age of space investment is now repeating itself, but this time dominated by private capital. In 2021, venture capital firms invested $17 billion in various aerospace companies in the United States, and the interest in this segment is once again —and never better said— at an all-time high. The absolute protagonists? The satellites.

Venture capital bets on launching (lots of) satellites

A report from the company Space Capital revealed how private investors have become co-stars in the space race. NASA’s budget has passed from that 4% of the years of the Apollo program to a current 0.5%.

The amounts that the United States government continues to contribute are of course significant and in fact have been increasing modestly but steadily in recent years. They don’t have much to do with the golden years of missions to the Moon anymore, but things have really livened up lately, and they have done it thanks to private companies.

According to Space Capital, private investment has gone from 9,100 million in 2020 to 17,000 million in 2021. The United States is the protagonist with 62% of the investments, while Japan is behind with 30% of these investments. In third place, already very far, is Italy, with 2%.

There are other countries involved in the space race. China invested $8.4 billion in 2017 for its military space program (Russia cut spending to 3,000 million) and that year the US invested some 14,000 million dollars in that area.

The data seems to reveal that the Asian giant invested much less than the United States in space missions: in 2016, the US. invested six times more than China and eight times more than Russia. Things may have changed now that China theoretically has reusable rockets, and is achieving unique milestones in its missions to the Moon and Mars.

Be that as it may, private investment has taken on a special role in a space race that used to be settled between the United States and Russia and is now seems to do it more between private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic or Boeing. Here the approaches vary a lot — space tourism was a trend last year — but the truth is that the interest of private capital in space is evident.

These investments also have absolute protagonists: the satellites. 95% of the investments have been destined for companies that launch satellites. Of the $17 billion invested, $4.3 billion was invested in space infrastructure: the hardware and software used to build, launch, and control space technology. That’s where companies like Sierra Space, SpaceX and Planet Labs have pushed the segment.

Image | NASA

Via | MorningBrew