Billionaire space tourists Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson made the headlines in 2021, while Elon Musk has his sights set on the colonization of Mars.

However, it’s worth remembering that these high-flying schemes often end up affecting our lives in more down-to-Earth ways – scratch-resistant glass, GPS, LEDs, memory foam, and heat-resistant metals have changed the way we live and were all developed thanks to space exploration.

The holy grail for space travel at the moment, reusable launch systems for orbital vehicles are set to dramatically lower the cost of leaving Earth’s atmosphere, opening the doors to many exciting space initiatives

Travel to the moon has not been top of the space exploration agenda for the past few decades, but that has changed as a number of strategic reasons to resume lunar landings have been identified in recent years. Mostly these will not call for humans to visit the barren satellite and will be conducted by autonomous landers and exploration vehicles.

Satellites are becoming smaller and lighter, meaning that even start-ups can now take advantage of the technological capabilities. In fact, reports in recent years have found that the cost to a business of launching a satellite is becoming comparable to launching an app.

It’s reassuring that we are already starting to think about clearing up after ourselves as we explore beyond the boundaries of Earth’s atmosphere. Launched this year, the ELSA-d (End Of Life Services by Astroscale-Demonstration) mission aims to clean up debris that will be left in space by future space missions.

World governments are increasingly investing in space innovation with the primary purpose of tackling challenges caused by climate change on Earth.

Click the link up top to read the details! Each of these goals is worthy on their own. As endeavors in space increase, so will the number of participants…and their projects.