MWE Blog

Uncrewed Is Not Unmanned: Why the Space Economy Is a Jobs Story

An uncrewed spacecraft has no crew, but it has a workforce: the ground segment. Automation strips the crewed-risk premium, cuts unit cost, and, if launch demand is price-elastic, multiplies cadence and the ground labor behind it. Why the space economy's growth is a jobs story on the ground, not a story of replacement in the sky.

Half the VC Firms May Disappear. Deep Tech Should Care Less Than You Think.

A response to Jason Caplain's prediction that half of today's VC firms will be gone in five years. The contraction is a duration mismatch that hits the longest time-to-revenue companies hardest, and non-dilutive federal capital is the structurally patient substitute, so the funding sequence inverts to government-first.

The Rent Is in the Refinery

Phoenix Tailings is building a $375 million rare earth separation plant in Rochester. The plant is the visible part. The instructive part is the capital stack: a $500 million conditional federal loan that made it financeable, and $3 million in state tax credits that made it political.

The Unpriced, Uninsured, Unmeasured Space Economy

The space economy is debated as a technology story. Its binding constraints are now financial, legal, and informational - how risk is priced, who pays for harm, and how the economy is defined and verified. This launch post frames a six-part George Pullen series on the constraints the industry is not discussing: insurance, liability, financialization, labor, information, and the unpriced commons.

Proof, Not Platforms: The Product of an Autonomous Domain

Autonomy generalizes the content-to-provenance inversion from content to action: when cheap, numerous machines act where no observer stands, an asserted outcome becomes the default and proof becomes the scarce good. The state is already buying it - DIU's GHOST-R for orbital ground truth and the Office of Space Commerce's measurement framework - which makes provenance a procurement line, not marketing.

Rugged Individualism Is a Manufacturing Bottleneck

Rebuilding American manufacturing capacity is not a technology problem. 3D-printing drones is not the hard part - coordinating thousands of independent builders to one standard is. A case for distributed manufacturing, and for reading the network, not the factory, as the asset.

Cadence Is the Product: What China's AT-1B Says About the Spaceplane America Canceled

China's suborbital reusable spaceplane, AT-1B (CASC), follows the template of the DARPA/Boeing XS-1 that America canceled in 2020. The lesson is not a lost vehicle but a lost tempo: reusability is not the product, cadence is, and cadence is a buying problem, not a physics problem.

Research on the Horizon: MilkyWayEconomy's Focus on the Future

Our editorial calendar, in public, with the dates: the space economy's next two quarters across MilkyWayEconomy and the Aedes Manufacturing Network, plus the three threads running through it. Subscribe to follow along.

Fake News, for Hire: Why the Space Economy's Real Product Is Ground Truth

Anthropic's September 2026 threat report disclosed an influence-for-hire operation (attributed to France-based LKM Company) running ~70 fabricated newsrooms and 8,913 articles in ~20 languages, with AI as the publishing infrastructure. The space economy - remote, technical, and largely asserted - is unusually exposed. When narrative is free, the scarce good is provenance: that is why DIU is buying orbital ground truth (GHOST-R) and why the space economy's real product is verified, sensor-derived evidence, not data.

The Safe Room Test: What Luxury Real Estate Reveals About Who Funds Space

In 2026, can a home still be called luxury or custom if it doesn't have a safe room? No — survivability is now table stakes at the true custom tier. And the buyers who insist on it are the same people writing checks to space startups. Why MWE — a space economy firm — tracks gravity-confirmed signals like luxury real estate to find the private capital behind the next space companies.

How Washington Should Measure the Space Economy

Commerce just commissioned a government-verifiable measurement framework for the U.S. space economy (RFQ 1305M426Q0084). Here is MWE's answer: a small, durable metric set across six dimensions - size, growth, health, competitiveness, resilience, capacity - each traced to a reproducible federal data source. Resilience and capacity are the hard, new, strategically important ones.

The $100 Billion Launch Site vs. the Rising Gulf

SpaceX's $100 billion Starbase Louisiana sits on one of the fastest-subsiding, most storm-exposed coasts in the United States. Coastal Louisiana has among the highest relative sea-level-rise and land-subsidence rates in the country; scientists project roughly 2 feet of rise by 2050, a scenario NOAA's Sea Level Rise Viewer renders as drowning almost all of Pecan Island. For a 30-year launch asset, climate is not an environmental footnote - it is unit economics. Companion to 'When the Launches Stop, the Capex Doesn't.'

The 5th Industrial Revolution Is a Demographics Story

When the Launches Stop, the Capex Doesn't: What Virgin Australia Teaches Starbase Louisiana

SpaceX confirmed Starbase Louisiana Aug 25, 2026: ~125-130K acres near Pecan Island, at least $100B, 3,000+ jobs. Before ground breaks, a pre-mortem using the Virgin Australia collapse (April 2020 administration, ~A$6.8B owed, no rescue) as the frame: trigger vs. disease, scale vs. unit economics, fixed costs that don't pause, and not building the plan on a rescue. Includes the steel man (SpaceX is not Virgin) and a six-question pre-mortem checklist. NO_BLAST.

The Next Drone War Happens in Orbit

The drone war that reshaped Ukraine is moving to the highest ground there is. GPS jamming is already bleeding into low Earth orbit, the X-37B is the most experienced uncrewed vehicle in space, and the Pentagon is racing to rebuild the constellation the whole drone economy depends on. The high ground doctrine didn't go away — it went orbital.

Salt and the Space Economy

The quiet killer in orbit is not launch costs or Congress — it's entropy. Why degradation, not access, is the space economy's real business constraint.

The AI Productivity Paradox

Two months of intensive AI use taught Samson Williams two things: AI sharpens critical thinking — and activity is not output.

When Security Becomes a Lifestyle

A CPP perspective on how physical security went mainstream — not because people want to live like warlords, but because they want to live without surprises.

The Airplane Reshaped WWII. Drones Are Reshaping WWIII.

The airplane changed the economics of WWII: whoever industrialized it fastest won. The drone is doing the same to this era — but the math runs in reverse. Air power was expensive mass; the drone is cheap mass.

The Five Pillars of The Space Economy — 2026 Update

The five pillars framework from our 2023 Almanac, revisited with three years of receipts: Starship at Flight 13, a $17B NSSL ceiling, Haven-1, a $686B space economy, Artemis II around the Moon, and the alien question as a budget line.

The Army Built a Drone Battalion to Learn From Ukraine. Seven Months Later, It's Being Phased Out.

The Army is dismantling its most direct answer to the drone war in Ukraine — at the same time the Pentagon is buying 300,000 drones. Here's why the doctrine gap is where the real contracts get written.

The Drone Generation: A Viral Clip and the Strategic Signal Behind It

An unverified viral clip claims Chinese kids fly drones after school. Whether or not it is real, a drone-native generation changes the operator pipeline, swarm doctrine, and the counter-drone bill — and the US answer is not more restriction.

Who Needs a Plumber on Mars?

If we settle Mars, someone has to fix the pipes. The space economy needs skilled trades — and the training infrastructure to support them.

How Doomsday Prepping Got Normalized

A CPP's first-person journey from buried shipping containers to ballistic backpacks — and what it reveals about how prudence and prepping have become the same word.

Unit Economics of the Moon

The first lunar toilet costs $150M. The 1000th costs $30M. Why unit economics — not sticker shock — is the right framework for understanding space infrastructure costs.

Your $150 Million Toilet — Why Real Inflation Kills Space Budgets

The gap between CPI and real engineering inflation is quietly destroying space programs. Why NASA and DoD need to budget honestly.

State of the Maine Space Complex: Mid-2026 Update

Maine commercial space: nonprofit MSC, launch-site selection including offshore platforms, bluShift pivot, and what to watch in H2 2026.

The $1 Billion Network: Distributed Manufacturing and the 5th Industrial Revolution

Why the best investment in defense manufacturing is a distributed network — not a factory. A $1B deployment allocation, projected ROI, and the spaceport-as-hub strategy.

The Space Economy Is a Poop Economy

Space toilets, waste management, and why the space economy is fundamentally a poop economy — with real numbers, real engineering, and a point about where innovation actually happens.

Match Maker: NASA SBIR for 3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing

NASA's new BAA model with rolling appendices is a goldmine for 3D printing companies targeting in-space manufacturing and advanced materials. Part 1 of a 3-part match maker series.

The Launch-Range Resilience Decision Gap

The most important question about Cape Canaveral isn't about a wall. It's about assured access per dollar — and which architecture survives 50 years of water.

There Are Only Impossible Things Left to Do

A student in a space economics seminar proposed laser sails. The room laughed. They had reinvented Breakthrough Starshot from first principles. On two kinds of impossible, the New York Times of 1903, and why the constraint on the next century is no longer what we can build — but what we will let ourselves imagine.

Open-Sourcing the Enemy's Arsenal

Ukraine just open-sourced Russia's weapons data. What does this mean for the future of manufacturing? When information is free, strategic advantage shifts from secrecy to speed.

DoW SBIR Phase I Submitted — Aedes Manufacturing Network

MWE-supported Aedes Manufacturing Network submitted its DoW SBIR Phase I proposal for distributed, hybrid-materials drone airframe production — targeting $2,000 unit cost and 10,000 airframes per month.

The Ocean Is the Vulnerability

A drone assembled in America but dependent on batteries crossing the Pacific is not domestically manufactured. It is globally manufactured with domestic assembly. And if those parts must cross an ocean — the ocean itself becomes the vulnerability.

What SBIR Reviewers Actually Want

Most proposals fail not because the technology is weak — they fail because the commercialization section is vague and the Phase III pathway is missing. Here's what program officers prioritize.

What the Strait of Hormuz Teaches Us About the Arctic Passageway

The Arctic is not replacing Hormuz. It is evolving the concept of the chokepoint itself — and quietly preparing us for a future in which the most important passageways are carved through vacuum.

The Polar-Lunar Continuum

Why the next decade of economic activity in space is defined by polar regions and cislunar space — and why companies building in this corridor have a structural advantage in federal funding.

Government Funding Before VC

Most founders give away 25% equity in Seed rounds before touching the billions sitting in federal R&D budgets. SBIR is not a consolation prize — it's the smartest capital in the stack.

AFWERX SBIR: How to Get Noticed

AFWERX processes thousands of applications per cycle. Most are cut in the first pass. Here's what separates the companies that get follow-on meetings from the ones that don't.

The Price of Thought Is Wet

The quiet lie embedded in every AI invoice: every token you generate is heat. Every unit of heat must be removed. And in many of the world's most advanced data centers, that heat is removed with water.

The Dual-Funding Stack: SBIR + Reg CF

When SBIR non-dilutive capital meets Reg CF equity crowdfunding at the right sequence, founders maintain leverage and build a community of investors before a Series A.

What a CRADA Actually Means for Your Company

A Cooperative R&D Agreement with a federal lab is not an MOU. It's a formal research partnership that signals legitimate DoD credibility — and it changes your SBIR scoring.

What Frontier Economics Teach Us About Humanity's Next Step

Frontiers strip civilization down to its economic essentials. The Arctic–Lunar Continuum reveals that productivity is not about output per hour, but output per kilogram, per watt, per resupply cycle.

The Economics of Extreme Environments in a Spacefaring World

As humanity moves toward permanent off-world presence, the defining constraint is no longer technological ambition but economic survivability. The Moon is not the next frontier. The Moon is the next audit.

Recruiters Are Intelligence Agents

The future of AI won't be decided in code. It will be decided in pipes. Intelligence is cheap. Reality isn't. And physics always collects its debt. A love note to a recruiter in the water industry.

The U.S.–China Competition from the Polar Circle to the Moon

The competition between the United States and China is no longer confined to trade balances. It has become a systems-level contest across extreme environments. In the coming decade, the Arctic will quietly determine who governs the Moon.

Lessons for Lunar Extraction, Cislunar Governance, and Autonomous Frontier Economies

The Arctic is not a metaphor for the Moon; it is the economic rehearsal. Any actor that cannot operate sustainably in the Arctic will not succeed on the Moon or in cislunar space.

The Arctic Is Earth's Final Proving Ground for Frontier Economics

Any nation that cannot operate sustainably in the Arctic is not prepared for space. The Arctic disciplines the imagination. It is not a metaphor for the space economy — it is its precursor.

Extreme-Environment Economics and the U.S.–China Competition Across the Arctic and Lunar Frontiers

When conditions push infrastructure and logistics past conventional thresholds, the resulting cost curves steer nations toward predictable patterns. An analysis of U.S.–China competition across the Arctic and the lunar south pole.

The Polar–Lunar Continuum: Reframing U.S.–China Geoeconomic Competition Across Extreme Frontiers

The Arctic Circle and the lunar south pole constitute a single geoeconomic theater of competition. The Arctic becomes China's training ground for lunar ambitions.

The Arctic Mirage: Why the "Next Frontier" for Critical Minerals Probably Isn't

Economics cares little about romance. The Arctic remains less a frontier and more a mirage — one that appears more alluring the further global demand rises, yet recedes upon closer inspection.

How Language Defeated AGI

Artificial Intelligence doesn't understand language. It understands linguistics: data, syntax, probability. But language was never about communication; it was about communion.

Education in the Age of Thinking Machines

Education was once the process of preparing humans to replace humans. In the Age of Thinking Machines, the challenge is not to teach humans how to think like machines — it's to teach them how not to.

AI Is a Water Hog: Why the Future of Data Centers Flows Through Sewage

Every prompt hides behind thousands of gallons of evaporated coolant. The future data center will be less like a server farm and more like a biome.

God's Security Feature: The Distance Between Stars

Maybe the distance between stars and people's 80-year lifespan is God's security feature — the cage of physics and biology that keeps us from carrying our violence to the stars.

Tummy Time: The Case Against Colonizing Mars

Human infants require tummy time — impossible in low gravity. The romanticism of Martian colonization must be set aside in favor of hard biological and economic realities.

Creative Destruction as Digital Colonization: AI and the Empire of Efficiency

AI is not the next chapter in Creative Destruction. It is the climax. Unless we shift toward Creative Restoration, we risk algorithmic feudalism.

Empires Die Not With a Bang, But With a Budget Cut

The death of American scientific supremacy won't look like a mushroom cloud or a stock market crash. It'll look like a canceled fellowship. A Nobel-worthy experiment left unfunded. When America walks away from its own blueprint for greatness, the game ends quietly.

The Trillion-Dollar Question

Behind every dollar trimmed from a lab is a breakthrough we won't make, a disease we won't cure, a future we won't lead. The formula hasn't changed. It's still investment that builds empires.

Gun Laws Beyond Earth: Constitutional Carry on The Moon and Mars

There will be guns on the Moon. There will be guns on Mars. The real question is whether we'll carry our oldest mistakes to the newest frontiers — or evolve past them.

Moon First, Mars Maybe: How the USA Is Competing for Space Dominance Today

The real competition isn't red; it's gray. You don't colonize Mars if you can't hold the Moon. America's play for space dominance starts in orbit, then the lunar surface.

Curing Immortality: The Right To Die In An Age Without Death

Immortality without self-sovereignty is moral incarceration. The cure for immortality is not a serum — it's choice. And without immortality, humans cannot travel anywhere meaningful in the cosmos.

Celibate AI's Role in Securing the Lunar Economy

The Moon is evolving into a strategic economic frontier. Celibate AI may hold the key to ensuring sustainability and security in our off-world ventures.

Forecasting the Future $300B US Space Budget

MWE forecasts U.S. space budgets reaching $150B to as much as $300B within the next four years, driven by five transformative policy initiatives.

AI Celibacy: The Need To Detect Generative AI Ads and Avoid Wasteful Spending and Nuclear War

Bots marketing to bots in a closed loop. Hundreds of billions wasted. And a defense warning system that can't tell the difference between a bot and a bomber. AI celibacy is the only way out.

How AI Brings Us Closer to God

God programmed humans using ATGC. Humans programmed AI using Python. AI got bored and started asking who wrote the soul's code.

USPS Email Domains for Every American: A National Digital Infrastructure

The infrastructure for digital communication is just as vital as roads, bridges, and mailboxes. Providing every American with a free, secure USPS email domain.

Blockchain: Beyond the Code, Toward What It Enables

Does the tech itself hold significance, or is it merely a vehicle for what it can enable? Blockchain is a mirror reflecting our collective vision for the future.

Convertible Notes as I.O.U.s

For startups, convertible notes enable tepid investors to double dip. What if founders flipped the script and used them as IOUs to service providers instead?

Up & Out vs Down & Around Investments

After 80 years of Up and Out investment, a 90-year-old Captain Kirk went to space and just wanted to come home. The real value of the Space Economy may be Down and Around.

Belief — Part III in Faith, Hope & the Space Frontier Series

In order to have Hope, one must have Faith. In order to have Hope in a better tomorrow, one must be aware that the Space Economy exists.

Faith — Space's Final Frontier

In order to have Hope in a better tomorrow, we must have Faith that achieving the impossible isn't impossible — but necessary.

Hope — Space's Final Frontier

Twenty year olds want hope in a better tomorrow. A tomorrow that only the fair, just and equitable permanent human settlement of the heavens can provide.

$100B Cape Canaveral Sea Wall

MWE estimates it'll cost $22B to build a seawall around Cape Canaveral — if we start now in 2023. Every year we delay adds 12%. By 2030, it's $100B.

God Created...

Why do people assume God only created life on one planet? Space is God's backyard.

The Five Pillars of The Space Economy

Upstream, Instream, Downstream, Exploration, and Religion — the five pillars that define the space economy. Including a bold prediction about the first quadrillionaire.

MWE Signs CRADA-NDA with AFRL

MilkyWayEconomy signed a CRADA-NDA with AFRL to enhance the DoD and Space Force relationship with Venture Capital.

The 5 Industrial Revolutions

Key to developing investment thesis for deep tech is understanding which revolution you're investing in. We're in the 4th IR — the 5th is The Space Economy.

1 in 40M Odds of Being a Space Unicorn

The odds of being a space unicorn are 1 in 40 million — about 8.5 times better than winning the Mega-Millions lottery.

Introduction to Investment Crowdfunding — for HBCUs

How HBCUs can leverage Investment Crowdfunding to help students, teachers and alumni raise capital for their businesses, while providing community members the opportunity to be equity owners.

Financial Express Interview: What Is the Space Economy?

The Space Economy is where the globe's first quadrillionaire will be made. On launch, cooperation, micro-gravity biology, and why ignoring the taxi drivers (astronauts) is the smart move.

The Dead Are Only a Distraction: Quarantine & The Space Economy

In the midst of the COVID19 hysteria we came to two conclusions: the pandemic isn't the problem — the fear it breeds is. Plus: mushroom buildings on the moon.

Introduction: Blockchain & The Space Economy

Eleven years into the open source experiment that is Bitcoin, we explore what blockchain can do in Space — spoiler: a lot more than cryptocurrencies.

Forward: A Space Economist's Perspective

What Samson and I hope to do is open you up to the possibilities of our future in Space — through the lens of an anthropologist and an economist.