How could shared lunar infrastructure be financed — and who should bear the risk if demand arrives later than planned?
No operating lunar infrastructure market exists yet; any model is a scenario, not an observation.
Labs / Space × Economics // active
Space × Economics Lab
Examine how activity beyond Earth is financed, who captures its value, and how long-horizon risk is shared between public and private actors.
Where does public value end and commercial revenue begin in space activity?
Economists disagree on how to count spillovers such as navigation, weather and Earth-observation services.
Can space resource extraction be economically meaningful given launch and processing costs?
Resource estimates exist; demonstrated commercial extraction beyond Earth does not.
Related Space Questions: Who owns the first city? · Exploration or escape?
Evidence scan
Suggest official statistics or peer-reviewed studies that measure the space economy and state their method.
Brief proposals
Propose a short brief on one financing model, clearly separating assumptions from data.
No approved outputs have been published yet.
seed research note // example scope, not a published finding
Measuring the space economy: what is counted?
Example scope for a first note: compare how official bodies define the space economy and why totals differ.
Lab Leadopen / to be appointed
Contributors are credited on outputs they helped produce. Contact details are never shown publicly.
context sources //editorial standard →
OECD // verified 28 September 2026
NASA // verified 28 September 2026