Those who know me know I have a crazy business idea at least once a week. For over a month, I've been exploring Canadian Space. In that time, I've become convinced about a few things that are not at all obvious from the perspective of the gradual development of the last 50+ years of the space industry.
Space Technocracy
The first thing I discovered is that the space industry is almost completely owned and controlled by bureaucrats and boffins (a British word for experts, scientists, and eggheads — I like the alliteration). Unconcerned about profitability, their big ideas for improving the space industry is more talk, more government money, and getting to the kids (a.k.a. the Marxist playbook). As documented by SpaceQ, all these efforts have almost no appreciable impact on society, though.
How big is the problem? Consider this ranking of national space industries from SpaceTech.global counting the number of companies.
Companies in various country's space industry at the end of 2021. Source: SpaceSpace.Global.
Canada ranks third on this list, suggesting over 600 active companies. So, I went looking for them, building a database of information as I explored. I came up with less than 50, which included organizations that are clearly not commercial, like the Canadian Space Society, which helps coordinate companies in the industry and Launch Canada, a student rocket competition.
A Changing World
The second thing I noticed is that the world is changing rather dramatically and most of the industry is carrying on as if it's not. Globalization, which has been expanding for the last 60-70 years (depending on the expert you listen to) has gone into full retreat. It probably started with Obama's withdraw from playing the world's police, accelerated with Trump's nationalist focus, and was exacerbated by the 2020 health scare lockdowns leading to supply-chain breakdowns. Countries are waking up to the American retreat and realizing they must re-shore things they relied on other countries to supply.
Our international space cooperation is also de-globalizing (though very slowly still). China got tossed out of the International Space Station in 2011; Russia is making noises about not continuing much past 2024. The countries which remain will shoulder a heavier financial load at the same time that the ISS mission is wrapping up (new end date: 2030).
The next space stations look to be much more nationalistic, private or commercial. The US has 5 commercial stations coming on line in the next few years; the Chinese will finish their new station in October. Russia published plans for their next station just last week. Simultaneously, commercial launch providers are exploding across the globe, with even countries like New Zealand now reliably putting satellites into space.
Canada, in contrast to this rush of international self-sufficiency, put out a plan for Canadian space in 2019 and has enacted almost none of it. Canada is so mired in the past that domestic launch providers like C6 can't get authorization to launch in Canada and send their rockets to Brazil. The UK is spending their research dollars much more effectively and Canada's space crown jewel MDA (the maker of the Canadarm) is now expanding into the UK, where it can find better opportunities.
The demographic time bomb noted by leading thinkers like Peter Zahn suggests that the government will not be a source of funding for anything considered "extraneous" soon. At the end of this year, the balance will shift with fewer young working people putting money into economic systems than retired people taking money out of those systems. The main impact of this will be reduced tax income for governments. The government will have two choices to respond: print more money, increasing the amount of debt and driving a vicious inflation cycle or taxing young people to the point they refuse to participate, quitting their jobs or even moving out of the country. The Chinese, who are ahead of Canada on this trajectory, have coined a word for young people dropping out of society: "Lying Flat".
Maybe It's Not Worth It
According to SpaceQ, Canadians don't have a clear vision of the value space offers. While many know something about SpaceX, or at least Elon Musk, almost nobody knows the impressive foundation laid for a Canadian space industry, its history, or the amount of technical expertise that mostly flows out of the country.
The value of Canadian research often gets monetized by other countries with better funding and intellectual property rights. While Canadians have benefited from massive improvements in communications, health and materials science, the benefits often come through American companies draining both intellectual property and money from the domestic system.
In Justin Trudeau's Canada, startup space companies are at a significant disadvantage, paying higher taxes and facing more onerous regulations and bureaucratic foot dragging. Other countries, seeing the massive benefits available, have moved quickly to empower space startups. Some are actively enticing entrepreneurs with experience to their shores with hefty incentives.
That's not to say that Canadians aren't trying, though! We are currently trying to build a spaceport to rival Spaceport America. We have two rocket companies on the cusp of being able to launch into orbit. We have 6 commercial satellite companies and lead the world in earth observation data analysis for things like methane and crop data. There is a commercial company aiming to mine water from the moon, which would dramatically reduce the cost of living and working in space in the future. An asteroid mining company calls Canada home. We have world-class rover testing facilities that other countries come to use. We lead the world in our understanding of how conditions in space impact human health.
Canadians receive direct benefit from the space industry in many ways, but let's focus here on just five areas:
Reputation: When Canadians speak about space, the world listens. People want to work with our experts.
Technical improvements: better understanding of the human body and materials have led to better health care and objects around us.
Communication improvements: cell phone are smaller and more reliable across the country, TV and internet is broadly available and coverage keeps improving, the cost of communicating keeps dropping. A surprising amount of this change is thanks to improvements in Canadian satellite coverage.
Earth Understanding: satellites reveal forest fires, crop and sea conditions. With the rise of data scientists, this data is being used in imaginative ways, revealing unexpected benefits in new data, old data, or in the combination of new data with old.
Defence: Canada is mostly protected by the US, but shares a border with Russia, has ocean rights others wish to infringe on, and other defence opportunities and obligations. In July, the Canadian military started a 75 person space defence unit which will take Canada's defences to "the next level," as it were.
Collectivist Options in Space
As I've looked at the situation, I have slowly come to think that the solution may require collective action by people currently outside of the industry. But, I don't mean further government takeover of the space industry, in fact, the opposite. I propose we the people take space into their own hands and profit from it directly through the power of imaginations and hard work. My working name for the organization that might do this is "Space Collective".
Canada, of course, has a long and storied history of cooperative action, from purchasing coops to artist collectives. And don't get me started on the Amish, old-style Mennonites and Hutterites! It suffices to say Canadian experiments with many forms of collectivism is extensive! These types of organizations are commercial enterprises (expect a profit), managed by the members, and capable of sustainable effort across enormous distances and timeframes.
What is different in 2022 is the ability of technology to provide all members with an active voice in governance, improve coordination and collaboration, reward members who are most productive, and protect the organization from various forms of attack. Perhaps most excitingly, the profits from the collective's efforts feed back into the collective and its members, rather than being syphoned off by top heavy boards, C-suites, and other management structures. This technology puts the power and profits back into the hands of the people.
I explored the technology side of the Space Collective in a couple of blog posts without being specific about its vision, mission, or goals. How a DAO might fit a Space Collective explored what a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is in relation to the collective idea. This is a good place to start if you think DAO might be an oriental philosophy.
Summoning Coordination and Collaboration: Why a Moloch DAO might be the best fit for a Space Collective made the case for a DAO's ability to protect the organization from attack while strengthening the best parts of collective governance and action. This is a good read to understand how technology and humans can work together for maximum organizational benefit.
DAO Patterns: designing an evolving business model with interchangeable DAO Legos argued DAOs are complex and flexible enough to grow seamlessly from simple brainstorming groups into vast corporate structures through a series of pattern changes, like a startup evolving its business model. If you've ever been frustratingly stuck with an outdated organization as the rest of the world changes, you'll appreciate this piece's scope.
Next Steps
Before stepping out and setting up a DAO, there are a few more background pieces to put into place. At a minimum, the space collective should have vision, mission, and goals. It should have a sense of how it might distribute its funds, the kinds of projects to pursue, and the people required to get there.
So, watch this space for updates. If you're interested in joining the movement to put space into the hands of the people, reach out: it's not too early; it's not too late.
Photo by Matteo Vistocco on Unsplash