Huge commercial opportunities in space - Peake

Monday 28 November 2022

British astronaut Tim Peake thinks international finance centres like Guernsey could have a role to play in future commercial space opportunities.

In the most recent We Are Guernsey (Guernsey Finance) podcast, Mr Peake (pictured above) said that “space is a huge growth sector, it's always done phenomenally well even despite financial difficulties.

“It's returned to sort of double digits in terms of its growth in many European countries and many countries around the world. Where you look at where were going in the future with new interesting commercial opportunities, it's very exciting”

Mr Peake claimed that commercial space companies such as SpaceX are making space more accessible by developing cheaper and more sustainable spacecraft. He noted that it used to cost around $50,000 to fly one kilo of materials into space. It now costs around $1,000.

“That means things that previously were felt to be prohibitively expensive are now actually a true commercial viability - things like in-orbit manufacturing - building things in space and bringing them back down,” he added.

All this is good news for national space agencies, according to Mr Peake, as it frees up much needed cash for other uses.

Pictured: Tim Peake is only the sixth British-born astronaut to work on the ISS. 

Mr Peake rose to notoriety as the first British astronaut to qualify for the European Space Agency. He later became one of the few Brits to serve aboard the International Space Station between December 2015 and June 2016.

He said SpaceX deserve huge credit for its role in developing new technologies through a “high failure appetite”: “Nasa and other space agencies would not have had that approach”.  

Space should be considered an environment to manufacture things, but also should be protected in of itself. He listed space debris and “our assets in space” as ongoing challenges.

50% of climate data, most weather data, and almost all modern position, navigation and timing infrastructure is based out-of-atmosphere.

Despite these challenges, Mr Peake said “there are so many different aspects where growth is phenomenal, and so many places where the financial sector can look at this.

You can listen to the full podcast HERE.