The US is "in a space race with China to go back to the moon", says Nasa chief Bill Nelson.His comments revive memories of the 1960s and 1970s, when Nasa was in a space race with the Soviet Union. But half a century later, Nasa is employing private companies to do much more of the work.
While big names like SpaceX might attract the headlines, Nasa's spending reaches much further into the economy.That money can accelerate the growth of small firms, particularly start-ups, says Sinead O'Sullivan, a former Nasa engineer and now space economist at Harvard Business School. In 1957 Russia became the first country to put a satellite in orbit as it fought the original space race with the US. Now there are just over 10,500 satellites orbiting earth, according to the European Space Agency.
About half of the satellites now in orbit were launched in the last three years, according to analytics firm BryceTech."The space economy is much broader than just rockets and satellite hardware. It is the invisible backbone that powers our global economy," explains Mr Anderson.