Yahoo Finance Video
As part of Yahoo Finance's Space Race: Investing in the Final Frontier special, Voyager Space Co-Founder and President Matthew Kuta sits down with Brad Smith to discuss the future of private sector operators in the space economy as the International Space Station (ISS) could be retired in the coming years. "If you go back to the time of the space shuttle, to launch a kilogram into space was incredibly expensive, like $1 million. And now as commercialization has taken hold, launching mass into orbit, the order of a kilogram is much less, you know, $1,000," Kuta comments. "So a lot of business models start to close now, now that you can actually get stuff to orbit, much more cost-effective. And then now that we're able to have these business models that actually close, you're actually able to use space not just for space, but space to improve humanity here on Earth." Kuta outlines that sustainability and adaptability are a major part of the developing private space economy: "Imagine flying a [Boeing] 747, every time you landed, you threw the airplane away, right? And you didn't reuse it." Lastly, Kuta finds that despite its vast differences in other industries, space companies need to be run and operated like any other business for the public to have trust in it, including communications teams and outreach: "And to me, the more you get people at the grassroots level just involved in space, the more it kind of starts to percolate up." Catch up on Yahoo Finance's special coverage as part of this week's Space Race: Investing in the Final Frontier series. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend. This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan. Follow along Yahoo Finance's latest coverage of the growing space economy: We need a regulatory framework for today's space race: Expert Boeing Starliner issues leave astronauts stranded in space These are the next big catalysts for the space industry