Space commerce exists in the early twenty-first century as a $100 billion industry. It consists primarily of firms providing commercial telecommunication and remote sensing services using satellites, as well as the manufacture and launch of those satellites. Space commerce also includes many organizations that provide products and services (including satellites, satellite services, launch, operations, and research) to government agencies in support of national civil and military space programs. Finally, a small number of firms provide other space services on a commercial basis, including space station access, on-orbit experimentation using a commercial module carried on space shuttles, and the launch of ashes for "burial" in space.

After key barriers to space commerce have been overcome, profit can be made through the development of new spacecraft, such as this theoretical depiction of a lunar freighter, which would be used in transport.

Efforts by space advocates...