NewSpace??
What is NewSpace and why would we possibly need a new term?
It’s a fair question, in all honesty. The truth is, there is no need for a new term. It does, however, make it significantly easier to discuss the shift that has occurred in the space industry in the last couple decades.
No less than the Harvard Business Review traces the start of #NewSpace back to the mid-2000s when NASA shifted its economic risk of space operations toward private industry. That policy shift opened the doors to today's space industry because "private companies' greater tolerance for risk . . . catalyzed a burst of activity in the sector." But for #NewSpace to truly be successful--and thus to really give the term meaning--more than private companies or the oft-vilified billionaires who fund them, need to get behind the shift in focus. It requires a truly whole-of-humanity approach to space, one which this blog seeks to further explore you, our readers.
NewSpace is not just an economic catchphrase to capture the fancy of investors looking for the next gold rush. It is not simply a buzzword used to discuss the latest developments in launch, telecom, earth observation, or space exploration sectors. It characterizes a new era of potential to develop space as an area of human activity, including habitation, market creation, and species-level self-awareness of our unique place in existence.
In other words, newspace is the beginning of the next epoch of humanity and its pursuit of inhabiting siti beyond planet earth. Such a situs may be located in earth orbit or further afield.
Space is no longer simply a medium to facilitate human existence on our beloved planet spaceship earth. Space is a necessary and sufficient destination for the permanent dwelling of humanity and all that such existence for humanity requires. Or at least such must be the approach of humanity's efforts in space if those working at the effort today will successfully pass their accomplishments on to subsequent generations of humans. It is through this approach that we, the humans pursuing space, can make the case to use space as a means for stewarding the limited resources available to us here on earth. We must always cherish and protect our home, it’s in our very nature.