Market

If investors are to get any return on their investment, we must have a market. Here we will look at some parts of the potential market.

Payloads Size

The initial payloads will be about 4000 Kg to GEO. This is much smaller than some customers want to put into GEO. Some customers will be able to design their systems so that they can be sent up in pieces and assembled in orbit. This can be solar panels, fuel containers, antennas, etc. To do this we would need some sort of telerobotic assembly device at the station on the tether. This would not be hard.

Satellite Shielding

Current satellites are vulnerable to attack. They are lightweight and unarmored. A tinny suborbital missile can put some shotgun pellets in the path of a satellite. When the satellite hits the pellets at 17,000 miles per hour, it will be destroyed. Also, lasers can hit satellites from the ground. Another attack is to use a nuclear bomb to generate an EMP. To defend against these it would be nice to have lots of heavy shielding. Up till now this has been too costly. However, this could be a big market if prices to LEO get low enough.

Missile Defense

The US has decided to make a missile defense. It is currently focused on ground based systems. However, if there were a low cost launch service they might want to develop a space based system.

Non-Tourism

When thinking about potential financers of this project some other possible markets came to mind.