Investors: space is becoming a new sector of the economy

Yevgeny Kuznetsov, Venture Investor, Founder of Orbita Capital Partners and Representative of Singularity University:

- Space gives us the opportunity to greatly expand the sphere of human presence even on Earth. That is, what is now deserts - stone, ice or sandy, in the future will become completely populated spaces where a person will live comfortably, and space technologies or robot technologies will also stand behind this.

They are, of course, the most complex in space, the most, let's say, far-reaching, because robots in space are very important and necessary, without them it is almost impossible there.

And in the near future, this will give another surge in robotization. Which will transfer many unpleasant and difficult types of professions into a mechanical, let's say, sphere, and people will not have to waste their health to engage in these difficult types of work.

... The craziest startup in this area is, of course, Planetary Resources, one of the most reputable. Deep space mining, all these are startups about the extraction of resources on asteroids.

Their great goal is to make space unlimited resources available to humanity.

And so far it looks like a rather powerful fantasy, but already now many elements of this technological package have been developed, which make it possible to look at this fantasy already as a fantasy of the near limit - that is, as something that can come true on the horizon of 20-30 years.

If this happens, then we will receive a completely unlimited resource of necessary materials for space construction and will be able to move from such a careful, temporary stay in space, as now, to a sufficiently long stay in space for people who need it not only for tourist tasks, but also , say, for the purposes of those therapies that work best under zero gravity conditions. Or, for example, to create some unique materials and products, which also requires weightlessness.

That is, all this makes it possible to bring space, which is already inhabited by people, closer, and to make man a cosmic being, as Tsiolkovsky dreamed of.

Yevgeniya Tyurikova, Head of Sber Private Banking:

- I am sure that yes (space will become a new economy). The space industry creates what economic theory calls positive externalities. This is when something indirectly affects the life of a third person.

…… The state has now begun to transfer part of its functions in the space industry to outsourcing. Consider this direct support when you become a partner of the state.

... Now the private business is investing 20% in the launch of satellites. Satellites are telecommunications, this is medicine, and maybe we will reach the point where we will send entire factories on satellites and then, perhaps, they will invent fuel that will allow us to do this and oil will no longer be needed.

Then the elites will change, the sectors will change, the industries will change.

... If you remember about data centers, they occupy vast territories. The world is engaged in data processing, more and more servers and data centers need to be built. This is a huge devouring of the energy that is on our planet.

Space is a great place to efficiently host servers there. It is at least cold there, and at the most it will not take up space on the planet.

... The main idea of investing in space now is not to miss this moment. And be part of the scientific and technological breakthrough of humanity. I am sure that we are standing on this very threshold.

That is, investing in space now is the same as investing in Apple and Amazon at the beginning of this century.

Yousef Khesuani, co-founder of 3 D bioprinting solutions:

- Since the beginning of the 2000s, bioprinting technologies have been actively developing, that is, printing tissues and organs using living cells as a printed material.

Today our printer is used in experiments with bacteria, we form biofilms from various bacteria, and with synthetic and ceramic materials, we can grow protein crystals using our printer.

That is, today it is such a whole platform technology that allows you to use completely different objects and conduct experiments not only in the field of regenerative medicine, but also in the field of bacteriology, in the field of studying new materials.

Specialists from different universities, both Russian and foreign, and these are not only biologists, but also physicists, mathematicians, materials scientists, chemists, are happy to conduct joint experiments with us in various fields.

Our experiments have two directions.

One area is experimentation for long-range missions; what we do in space for space.

Long-distance missions require new studies of the regenerative potential of humans and animals, as well as the study of some molecular mechanisms.

And the second story is when we really try to "land" space technologies on Earth, no matter how tautological it may sound, but it is so.

And, probably, the most successful experiment with ceramic materials, which we learned to get in a fairly stable form first in space, but were able to transfer these technologies to Earth using special centrifuges. I really hope that such materials will soon appear in the clinic.

Today we are conducting experiments on animals to study the properties of these materials. These materials can be used not only in surgery or orthopedics to replace bone tissue, but, for example, to restore tooth enamel.

We hope there will be toothpastes with materials that were developed in space. That is, quite a product that came to us from outer space, and it will be on the shelves of our stores.

Oleg Mansurov, founder of Success Rockets:

- Global challenges such as identifying fires, combating warming, preventing various natural disasters or man-made disasters are the tasks that unite the private sector and the state.

And at the junction of such cooperation in the framework of new forms of public-private partnership, projects such as ours are working. The niche we are aiming at is not currently occupied by the state, Russia now does not have its own ultralight rocket and there has not been much development on small spacecraft.

And just a few years ago, our state, represented by our government of the Russian Federation and Roskosmos, openly declared that they are ready to support in every possible way various private and business initiatives aimed at creating ultralight rockets and small spacecraft.

And, in fact, our company is such a pilot project for Roscosmos in order to work out all the regulatory norms that are necessary to build a successful business and solve those national problems that we have.

In our opinion, the key to success lies not in the technology of creating the rockets or spacecraft themselves - in our country they do it very well, but in how to assemble this project from an organizational point of view, from a managerial point of view, in terms of financing all processes, connecting all the necessary participants - and this is our main job.

The tasks and challenges faced by our country, the global economy associated with various economic processes, with various technological revolutions or transitions to new structures, with the same epidemics - they can be solved with the help of space technologies.

Space has always been a supplier of new breakthrough solutions.

Plus, the issue of industrialization of outer space is now being actively discussed, and this is the new area where humanity should, in any case, come and colonize and master.

View the entire Esquire Russia issue here.