I want you to take a second and just look down
at your smartphone. Or if your phone happens
to be in your pocket, just look down at the athletic
shoes on your feet. Yeah, that's a perfect place
to start. Right. Because you probably don't realize
this, but you are currently holding or wearing
literal space technology. Exactly. We have this
incredibly rigid mental image of what the space
industry actually is. We picture a launch pad,
a massive rocket, billionaires in heavy suits,
mission control rooms. Right, the whole Hollywood
aesthetic. Exactly. But today, we're doing a
deep dive into some data from the Space Foundation,
specifically this incredible presentation by
their chief operating officer, Shelley Brunswick,
at the Women Tech Network. And it basically proves
that you are already standing right in the middle
of a global space economy. You really are. And
the crazy part. This industry is practically
begging you to take a piece of it regardless
of your background or you know what you went
to school for Okay, let's unpack this because
the numbers we are looking at are frankly staggering
They really are and what's fascinating here is
the massive almost comical disconnect between
public perception and economic reality. Oh totally
When you look at the current state of the global
space economy, it's valued at four hundred and
twenty four billion dollars. It's just huge.
Right. That is not some niche scientific endeavor.
You know, it is a massive economic engine and
it's an engine that is fundamentally changing
how human beings live. And it's not stopping
at four hundred and twenty four billion either
because the financial projections specifically
citing Bank of America in this research, they
estimate this economy is going to styrocket to
one point four trillion by the year 2030. Which
is just around the corner, really. Exactly. And
by 2040, over three trillion. Trillion with a
T. Yeah. And to understand how an industry scales
to three trillion, you have to look at who is
actually participating. Right. More than 80 nations
actively operate in space, but literally almost
every nation, every individual, and every company
on Earth uses it. Everyone is plugged in. Exactly.
The nature of the game has fundamentally changed.
If we look at the historical shift, you know,
40 years ago, space was essentially just two
competing governments during the Cold War. Just
this massive geopolitical chess match. Right.
It was heavily militarized, highly secretive
and very male dominated. But today, the pendulum
has completely swung in the opposite direction.
We're looking at an inclusive ecosystem that
spans across 16 different sectors. So we're talking
data analytics, energy storage, healthcare, advanced
manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and virtual
reality. And here is the statistic that forced
me to just completely re -evaluate everything.
In the United States... 80 % of the space economy
is commercial. That's the key right there. It
is. Because when we hear space economy, we view
it like an exclusive VIP club, where only Elon
Musk, Jeff Bezos, and NASA astronauts are on
the guest list. Yeah, that's a perception. But
looking at these numbers, it's actually more
like the internet itself. It's this massive underlying
infrastructure that powers everything else, from
agriculture to finance. But on. It's driven by
everyday jobs, consumer products, services, entrepreneurship.
And the financial incentives for the everyday
worker completely back that up. I mean, average
salaries in the space industry consistently outpace
comparative sectors. But the real realization
comes when you look at the tangible outputs.
If 80 % of this massive economy is commercial,
they are selling the everyday items we just take
for granted. Which brings us right back to your
smartphone and your running shoes. because the
presentation revealed that a standard cell phone
alone contains three different types of space
technology. It does. But I want to pause here
because it's easy to just list things off. Like,
how does a cell phone actually connect to a satellite
or a space probe? So it really comes down to
the brutal constraints of space travel. In the
1990s, NASA realized that interplanetary spacecraft
needed to be much, much smaller. Just to save
on fuel and launch costs, right? Exactly. But
they still needed to take high quality photographs
of other planets. And the existing cameras at
the time were far too large and required way
too much power. OK, so what did they do? Well,
a team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory invented
the CMOS active pixel sensor. They essentially
miniaturized a camera onto a tiny microchip.
Wow. And that exact technology engineered to
photograph Mars and Jupiter is the camera lens
sitting on the back of the smartphone in your
hand right now. So every time I take a photo,
I'm literally using interplanetary probe technology.
You are. That is wild. And it's not just the
camera, right? It's the GPS navigation that tells
me where I'm driving. Yep, which relies on atomic
clocks developed for satellites. And even the
scratch -resistant glass on the screen traces
back to the durable coating they had to invent
for astronaut helmet visors. Right, so they wouldn't
get scratched by space dust. It's the ultimate
proving ground. When you engineer a solution
for a zero -gravity environment with extreme
temperature fluctuations and massive radiation,
you inevitably create a highly durable, highly
efficient technology. I have to call a timeout
here, though, and play devil's advocate. Go for
it. Because when I'm watching a mattress commercial
and they start talking about space age memory
foam, I immediately assume that is 100 % a marketing
gimmick. I think most people do. Right. Are you
telling me NASA actually designed my bed? This
raises an important question about what technology
transfer actually is. Because it sounds like
a gimmick, but it is literal aerospace engineering.
Seriously? Yeah. Think about the g -force an
astronaut takes during the launch and reentry
of a spacecraft. It's immense. In the 1960s,
during the Apollo era, NASA had to invent a material
for the seats that would mold to a human body
to absorb that incredible shock. But then it
had to return to its original shape so it could
be reused for different astronauts. Oh, wow.
So they created temper foam. And decades later,
that highly specific crash protection material
is exactly what we sleep on and what lines the
soles of our athletic shoes to abhor the impact
of running. That's incredible. And it's not just
consumer comfort either. The sources dive heavily
into life -saving medical advancements. Yeah,
this is where it gets really profound. things
like mammogram detection and MRIs. And I struggled
to see the connection there at first. Like, how
does launching a rocket relate to scanning a
human body? It connects through the imaging algorithms.
So when the Hubble Space Telescope was first
launched, it actually had a flaw in its mirror.
Oh, right. I remember hearing about that. Yeah.
And the images of distant galaxies were coming
back super blurry. So the software engineers
at NASA had to write highly advanced digital
imaging algorithms to isolate the stars and clarify
those blurry pictures. Well, medical researchers
realized that if this software could spot a faint,
blurry star against the blackness of space, it
could probably also spot faint microscopic anomalies
in human tissue. No way. Yes. That space software
was adapted to spot microcalcifications in breast
tissue. which led to non -surgical biopsies and
vastly improved mammogram detection. It's taking
the absolute extreme of human engineering and
applying it to our daily survival. And that extends
to the broader environment too. The presentation
highlighted Earth observation satellites. We
tend to think of satellites as just broadcasting
television or internet. Right, the basic stuff.
But they're essentially the nervous system of
the global economy. They don't just sit up there.
They power the precise weather predictions that
allow commercial flights to navigate safely.
They track global water resources so we know
where drought is hitting. They even optimize
agriculture by telling farmers exactly which
crops are yielding and which need more water,
down to the square meter. We don't feel our nerves
firing to regulate our body temperature, and
we don't see those satellites regulating global
shipping routes in agriculture. But if you sever
that nerve, the whole modern world just shuts
down. Here's where it gets really interesting.
Because you would think that venture capitalists
and massive corporations have already mined all
of this tech. You'd think the gold rush is completely
over. You'd think so, yeah. But the data highlights
what the Space Foundation calls the innovation
gap. Right now, at the NASA Technology Transfer
Office and the European Space Agency, there are
thousands of patents just sitting there. Thousands
of them. They relate to transportation, healthcare,
pharmaceuticals, energy storage. They are literally
sitting in a vault waiting for everyday entrepreneurs
to commercialize them. It is a massive, uncapped
reservoir of intellectual property. The research
has already been funded by taxpayers. The engineering
has already been done by some of the brightest
minds on the planet. It's just wild. And the
literal process of accessing this isn't some
secretive closed -door affair. Anyone can go
online to the NASA Tech Transfer website, browse
through categories like robotics or advanced
materials, and apply for a commercial license.
Just like that. They are literally waiting for
business minded individuals to figure out how
to package these extreme environment solutions
for the everyday consumer market. But OK, if
it is this lucrative and there is a clear mathematical
path to a three trillion dollar economy with
thousands of cutting edge patents just waiting
to be claimed. Why isn't every small business
in the world pivoting to space commerce? There
has to be a catch. Well, the industry is hitting
a massive wall. There are three distinct roadblocks
preventing this explosive growth from happening
smoothly. OK, what are they? A severe workforce
shortage, a widening skills deficit, and that
innovation gap we just outlined. Right. So the
workforce shortage seems to be a purely demographic
issue across the US, the European Union, Japan
and other major economies. The workforce is simply
aging out. Yeah, it's a huge. The baby boomers
who built the foundational infrastructure of
this industry in academia, private manufacturing,
government agencies, they are all retiring. And
the critical issue is that there simply aren't
enough younger workers coming in behind them
to fill those empty seats. Which crashes directly
into the second roadblock, the skills deficit.
The presentation provided a really illuminating
example from the height of the COVID pandemic
in 2020. Oh yeah, the tourism example. Exactly.
The space industry had plenty of open jobs available
at the time. While concurrently, millions of
people were displaced from the travel and tourism
industries. You would think that's a perfect
match. Right. But they couldn't just plug those
unemployed people into the open space jobs because
the displaced workers lack the specific modern
skills required. It really highlights this intense
need for constant re -skilling and up -skilling.
The speaker made a very relatable point about
how everyone today has to learn new software
constantly just to function. Oh, absolutely.
She referenced the very real struggle of having
to suddenly learn how to use HubSpot or new video
conferencing tools just to join a meeting. Technology
is moving so fast that the traditional workforce
is struggling to keep up with the baseline requirements.
If we connect this to the bigger picture... It
becomes clear that this isn't just an engineering
problem. It is a fundamental labor crisis. Wow.
And to solve it, the space industry has to completely
abandon its traditional talent pools. The industry
is absolutely desperate for non -STEM professionals.
This part completely blew my mind. Because we
think of space as purely scientists, physicists,
mathematicians. Which we do. But the industry
specifically needs welders. They need electricians.
They need trades workers for the massive manufacturing
sector required to build these components. Think
about what a welder does in the space industry,
right? They aren't just joining two pieces of
metal. They're fusing alloys that have to withstand
the vacuum of space, micrometeorite impacts,
and thousands of degrees of heat during rocket
propulsion. That is intense. It is high end,
extreme environment manufacturing that requires
master craftsmen, not just PhD students. They
also desperately need business administrators
to actually run these new startups and program
managers to keep complex multi -year missions
on track and under budget. Exactly. The presentation
even explicitly stated they need artists like
musicians, filmmakers and TV creators. Which
sounds surprising at first. It does. Why artists?
Because someone has to visualize these habitats.
Someone has to tell the story. of this new frontier
to inspire the next generation to actually want
to work in it. And because of this sheer desperation
for talent across every conceivable discipline,
the old barriers to entry have been completely
erased. That's the silver lining here. The space
industry is now open to groups that were historically
shut out. It goes far beyond vital initiatives
for women and minorities. It explicitly targets
underrepresented geographies. Like where? Inner
cities, rural farming communities, different
regions across the entire globe. The industry
can no longer afford to be an exclusive club.
So if I'm a displaced tourism worker or an artist
or a welder listening to this and I hear there
are thousands of NASA patents sitting around
and an industry desperate for my help, my immediate
thought is, great, let me add them. Right. But
I can't just walk into the European Space Agency
and demand a job. What is the actual bridge between
me and this ecosystem? This is exactly what the
Space Foundation Center for Innovation and Education
was built to solve. They developed a highly structured
five -step workforce development roadmap. And
those five steps are awareness, access, training,
connecting, and mentoring. That makes sense.
Every single program they run operates on this
pathway to take someone from zero aerospace knowledge
to active participant. Step one is awareness,
which is the foundational realization that this
ecosystem even exists, that it's 80 % commercial
and that there is a place for your specific skill
set in it. Step two is access. You know, you
need a doorway in. The presentation highlights
several specific access points, like participating
in the Women Tech Network, engaging with the
UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, Space for Women
program, or joining the Space Generation Advisory
Council. It's about finding the open door that
aligns with your background. Exactly. From there,
you move to training. And this isn't necessarily
a four -year degree, right? Not at all. It could
mean getting a specific manufacturing certification
or taking a targeted online course to upskill
your software knowledge. Then you move to connecting
with the industry by attending events. And finally,
mentoring. Finding someone who has already navigated
this complicated path to help you overcome the
inevitable roadblocks. And to execute this roadmap,
they have built incredibly robust practical programs.
For adults and small businesses looking to transition
into the industry, they offer the Space Commerce
Entrepreneurship Program. What does that entail?
This includes online webinars, virtual and in
-person workshops, and entrepreneurial podcast
series to highlight role models. They've already
successfully helped hundreds of entrepreneurs
figure out the literal mechanics of licensing
a patent and building a business model around
it. But the initiative that really stopped me
in my tracks was the Junior Space Entrepreneurship
Program. Oh, it's brilliant. This is aimed at
K -12 students primarily high schoolers, and
they aren't just teaching them to memorize the
names of the planets or build baking soda volcanoes,
which is what my space education looked like.
Right, mine too. They put these students into
teams, and the team's initial mission is to theoretically
go to Mars and safely return. So they have to
learn the STEM skills, the math, the biology
required to survive that journey. But the brilliant
twist is that once they return to Earth, the
mission isn't over. They then have to form a
company and commercialize a product or technology
they developed during their journey to Mars.
It is an incredibly sophisticated approach to
education. By forcing them to commercialize the
technology, they are learning critical 21st century
skills. Yes. Whether they eventually become space
entrepreneurs or go work in a completely different
sector like finance or health care, they are
learning project management, marketing, financial
modeling, team collaboration, all under the exciting
umbrella of a Mars mission. And for the professionals
already working or trying to transition in, they
host massive networking events. The annual Space
Symposium in Colorado Springs brings in tens
of thousands of attendees. It's huge. And recognizing
that networking can't just happen once a year,
they launched Symposium 365, a digital program
to keep the global space community actively collaborating
year round. It all comes back to that collaboration.
Whether you are dealing with military, commercial,
civil or international sectors, the technological
multiplies when the community is connected rather
than siloed. So if you are driving in your car
right now or at the gym and you have absolutely
zero background in aerospace. Yeah. What is literally
step one for you today? Step one is moving from
that awareness phase into the access phase. You
go to SpaceFoundation .org. You look at their
specific resources. You browse that NASA patent
database online to see what kind of technology
actually exists. To see what's out there. Exactly.
And most importantly, you seek out a mentor through
organizations like the Women Tech Network or
the UN Space for Women program, which by the
way are open to both men and women. You simply
have to decide to step through the door. So what
does this all mean? We started this deep dive
looking at a hidden $424 billion economy. And
we've traced it all the way down to the realization
that your unique skills, whether you are working
in business administration, whether you are a
creative artist, or whether you work in a completely
unrelated trade, are desperately needed to help
push this industry toward that $3 trillion mark.
They really are. The ultimate takeaway here is
that space exploration is no longer just about
looking up at the stars. It is fundamentally
about bettering life down here on Earth. It's
about jobs. It's about medical breakthroughs.
And it's about everyday innovation. And that
leaves us with a fascinating implication to consider.
If high schoolers in the Junior Space Entrepreneurship
Program are learning to build real -world businesses
by commercializing the technology needed to survive
on Mars, well, what if the next massive world
-changing industry on Earth isn't invented to
solve an Earth problem at all? What if the cure
to our most pressing terrestrial challenges,
whether that's in agriculture, water management,
or healthcare, is accidentally born from simply
trying to keep human beings alive on another
planet. How does that change the way we view
the absolute necessity of space exploration?
That is an incredible thought to leave on. Thank
you so much for joining us on this journey today.
Keep looking closely at the technology around
you. Keep questioning the boundaries of your
own industry. And as always, keep learning.