private companies are getting a bigger slice of the high sky pie, but can they really [and a profit in outer space? well, i'm going to find out from these two — there they are. one leading investor tells me how he's trying to get out—of—this—world returns from orbiting the earth. also, from dishwashers by day to explosives at night — the big boss of rocket lab tells me how he got his company flying. also on the show, i'm going to catch up with the big boss of nasa. yeah, the former astronaut tells me how important private companies will be as the us and china hurry back to the moon in the 21st—century space race. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. it is the final frontier — space. what lies out there could help answer many of the problems that we face here on earth, from energy to climate change.

and then, of course, there's the fun of it all as well. a growing number of wealthy people are booking tickets just to have a view of the planet from above. it all means that the space economy is really taking off. the space economy is worth about $340 billion, but by 2040, that'll grow to $1 trillion — although a lot of this is because of things like new satellite—based data services. and then there's been a big jump in satellites in orbit. the european space agency says that more than 15,000 satellites have been launched since russia got the ball rolling back in 1957. just over half are still functioning. in the last decade, there's been a big jump in the numbers being added. but over the last four years, that's mainly been thanks to just two companies — 0neweb and elon musk�*s starlink. none of them would be able to get there, of course, without the rockets that companies like rocket lab and spacex are developing. rivals such asjeff bezos�*s blue origin and richard

branson�*s virgin galactic are also pouring billions into getting into orbit, to the moon and beyond — yeah, to mars. a lot of the money, it's coming from the us space agency nasa, which recently awarded blue 0rigin a $3.1; billion contract to help get man back to the moon and signed a similar one with spacex two years ago. a lot of the time, we talk about venture capital and private equity. however, governments are equally, if not more, important. so the role of government is twofold. the first, commonly thought of as being the most important, is to provide funding for these startups. however, the more interesting and probably more important part of this is that governments actually act as a customer for these startups. they then in turn provide revenue that these startups can then go back to the private capital markets and use that to get more private funding. it was, of course, nasa that first put man on the moon... that's one small step for man... ..one giant leap for mankind.

..although not without technology that was developed by private companies at the height of the space race with the soviet union. and over the years, that space race has yielded all sorts of innovations that have become part of our everyday lives. camera phones, sneakers, baby formula and prosthetic limbs all owe at least some of their development to space exploration. and it's likely there'll be plenty more of that innovation in the years ahead. some of the biggest rivals for those private companies include the deep pocketed chinese government, which is the only country to have its own space station, as well as russia and india, who both have sizeable space programmes. that said, it's cheaper than ever to get to space. so how are companies hoping to make money out of orbiting in thin air? well, i've been speaking to the man who's literally written the book on the space economy, but is also the founder of the investment fund space capital, which has poured more than $100 million into the space economy, including into elon musk�*s industry—leading spacex.

chad anderson, a real pleasure having you on the show. and, chad, let me start with this, because your fund is invested in more than 20 different space—orientated companies. now, given that the space industry is arguably more risky than most, what makes an idea a good investment? well, i think that the riskiness factor is a common misconception, which i'm glad to help clear up. so, first of all, i think the space economy is much broader than just rockets and satellite hardware. it is the invisible backbone that powers our global economy, gps that helps us get where we want to go, it helps goods get to their destination across the globe, and it enables our financial markets. without the timing piece, ourfinancial markets wouldn't work. so, space technologies are foundational. and, chad, you're invested in elon musk�*s spacex, but i'm just wondering,

how important is it — and its rivals, like rocket lab and jeff bezos�*s blue 0rigin — how important are those companies in fuelling the space economy into the future? the only reason that we're speaking about space as an investment category today is because of spacex. a little over ten years ago, before their first commercial flight, the entire market was really government—dominated. they reduced the barriers to entry and they brought the cost of accessing orbit way down and brought transparency to a market where it otherwise didn't exist previously. so what that meant was that companies could then start to go out and build business plans and raise venture capital to fund innovative new ideas, innovative new approaches and business models, leveraging small satellite platforms. the us investment bank morgan stanley, it's forecasting the space economy. it says it's going to triple in size to reach $1 trillion by 2040.

i'm just wondering, what areas of space activity are likely to be the most profitable, in your view? 90% of all activity falls within the satellites industry, and that's the gps — geospatial intelligence satellite communications — stacks. and within that, you've got layers — infrastructure, distribution and applications. and these companies are growing incredibly fast and they're focused on the world's largest industries, like agriculture, insurance, maritime, logistics. regrow is a company that's focused on data fusion, leveraging information from satellites, as well as ground sensors, to enable precision farming. we have an insurance company called arbol that is using satellite data to underwrite and pay out insurance policies. these companies, again,

have grown incredibly fast over the last few years and are starting to play an increasingly important role in their select market verticals. well, on that point, chad anderson, a real pleasure having you on the show. good luck with everything and i'll check in with you soon. thank you. now dishwasher engineer to self—taught rocket guru. it might sound like, well, the stuff of science fiction, but it's actually the reality for one of the men whose rockets are helping the next great space age take shape. he's widely seen as the greatest rival to elon musk�*s spacex, and the founder of rocket lab is also part of nasa's plans to get back to the moon. peter beck, a real pleasure having you on my show. and, peter, let me start with this, because the best line i've read about you is that you went from dishwasher by day to explosives by night. peter, i mean, how did you go from a dishwasher engineer to literally reaching for space and developing one of the world's most successful space companies? i'd always had a passion forspace, eversince i was very, very young, and a passion for engineering.

and you combine those two things and then you get rocket lab. and i started my career out as a tool and die maker, an apprentice at a company called fisher and paykel — that, as you correctly point out, built dishwashers — and then into the design office, then into a government research institute where we did a lot with smart materials, mainly carbon composites, and then really went on a rocket pilgrimage to the united states, decided that what was happening wasn't what i thought was needed to happen and came back to new zealand and started rocket lab. but, peter, you also started without the considerable wealth of your billionaire rivals, like elon musk, jeff bezos and richard branson. i mean, how have you managed? where did all the money come from? we raised venture capital out of the united states, out of silicon valley. and it's true that we raised a significantly less amount than all of our competitors, in that sense.

but, i mean, we have a saying at rocket lab. and it's in fact the reason why we named our rocket engine after ernest rutherford. ernest rutherford very famously said, "we have no money, "so we have to think." and, you know, sometimes an over—capitalised startup is not the best thing. and so we had very slim resources, but that drove really innovative solutions. peter, just briefly explain to the uninitiated the kind of things rocket lab is doing now and what it is you're working on over the next few years. the way to describe the space industry is you can largely bucket it into three lumps. one is launch, and launch is about a $10 billion opportunity. then there's infrastructure, which are like building the satellites. it's about a $30 billion opportunity. and then there's applications, and that's about an $830 billion opportunity. and when i say "applications", those are all the services that we use from space. so the unique thing

about rocket lab is we cover all of the spectrum, basically. so we build rockets. and i think we're most famously known for our electron launch vehicle, which is a small, dedicated launch vehicle. it's currently the second most frequently launched rocket behind ourfriends over at spacex, behind the falcon 9. but we also built a complete spacecraft. and we had a mission recently last year where we flew the first artemis mission, vanessa, to the moon, the capstone mission. we're building two spacecraft for nasa to investigate the martian atmosphere, which are launched in 202a. we have the neutron rocket, which is under development. that's also a vehicle that's capable of human space flight. and, peter, unlike two of your biggest rivals, spacex and blue 0rigin, some of your shares, they're publicly traded. i'm just wondering, just does the need to give shareholders a financial return limit what you can achieve? because, let's be frank,

i mean, this is a business not without a lot of risk. no, absolutely, no, i think it's the opposite. i think it drives good business decisions and good engineering decisions, because if you have no accountability, then you can be very fast and loose with your decisions and your spending. and we've seen that across the industry and the resulting outcomes. so, no, i think it brings a level of rigour and discipline to a business that's very healthy. and, look, make no mistake — i'm trying to build a multi—generational space company that will live on long, long, long after i'm gone. and you do that... one of the reasons, in fact, we went public is to enforce that. as we know, india'sjust launched a mission to the moon. china's trying to get its astronauts there. and there's this growing talk of mining the moon for stuff like helium—3. do you worry, peter, that it'll be a free—for—all? and is it even going to be economically viable?

well, i think some of those things become much more economically viable when there's a destination. so at the moment, it's not economically viable to go to the moon, mine it and bring it back to earth. i mean, the only reason you want to mine in space is because you want to do stuff in space. so i think there's a really exciting chapter of the space industry to come. i want to talk to you about space tourism and the other things that your rivals are doing, or want to do. and, again, you once said, don't get me wrong, i think sending a few people to mars increments the human species. no argument. i think it's wonderful. but you went on and you said, "i think you can have a larger "impact on a larger group of people by commercialising "space and making it accessible." peter, what did you mean by that? i mean, you think, what is the difference between a developing nation and a developed nation? it's knowledge. that's it — it's pretty much knowledge. so if you can disseminate the knowledge of the world to an emerging nation, through the use of space, for example, through internet, from orbit, then that has

a huge and lasting effect on kind of the evolution of the human race. so, gps is always the obvious example. but, i mean, if i said to you that your tinder date wouldn't turn up without space infrastructure, you might look at me crossways, but the reality is that is the reality. it requires space infrastructure for that to happen. so it's integrated and woven into our everyday lives, whether it be disaster recovery, crop monitoring or earth observation. it's just... it's just completely intertwined. if we look at everything that the private space industry is doing and trying to do, peter, is there anything that keeps you up at night? if you want sleep, don't become the ceo of a rocket company! jeepers! it's the worst thing you could do! i'm just terribly excited. no longer is it kind of the domain of a few kind of either quirky startups or government defence forces. it's a real industry and it's a real thing. you know, there's enough to worry about

when you launch rockets. and let me end on this — because you're working on your larger neutron rocket, which could potentially power human space flight. now, peter, correct me if i'm wrong here, but you haven't been to space yourself yet. so are you planning to get up there? and if so, what excites you the most about that idea? i'm in awe of astronauts. let's let that be said, because, you know, i possess all of the technical knowledge about how our rocket works but none of the courage to fly on one. i understand the safety factor and the margin on every bolt and every part. i'm in complete awe and admiration of astronauts, but i highly doubt that i will ever go to space. peter beck, the big boss of rocket lab, really appreciate your time. good luck with everything and i'll talk to you soon. no worries. you know, if there's one name that has defined the space age, it's the national aeronautics and space administration — known, of course, as nasa. the us government space agency was first to put a man

on the moon, and after a hiatus of more than 50 years, it's trying to be the first one back there — only this time, it's even more dependent than ever on private companies. so as space becomes more commercial than ever, i decided to catch up with the former astronaut and us senator who is now the big boss of nasa, bill nelson. a real pleasure having you on the show. and, bill, let's start with this, because when the space race first started in the 1950s, it was very much the preserve of government — and really only the biggest, right, the us and the soviet union? what's changed, bill, to allow the private sector in? a considerable number of things. first of all, you can share cost. and it's notjust that we're doing it with the private sector. we're doing it with the international community as well. so, for example, we go back to the moon after a half century, we're going back not only with our commercial

partners but with our international partners. but another reason to bring in outside people is the creativity of entrepreneurs in the private sector. and that has certainly borne out, as we have seen with spacex, the commercial crew to our international space station, to and from the station, also other companies with regard to commercial cargo. and, bill, when it comes to the private sector, there are really just two companies that have proven technology to launch rockets. you mentioned space x, also rocket lab, but both have received huge amounts in contracts from yourselves at nasa and other parts of the us government — i mean, spacex, at least, ithink, $10 billion. bill, would they be able to be so successful without those public sector contracts?

well, certainly the incentive for them to start their work was government payments and investment. for example, the whole commercialjet airline — what do you think it was developed for? it was originally developed for the us military after world war ii. look at what jet airplanes do in the commercial sector today. so sometimes there's seed money, there's incentive money to start in the commercial sector. and, bill, at nasa, you've given billions of dollars to spacex, to blue origin and to boeing to help get man back on the moon. and last year, when testifying to congress, you backed the idea of fixed price contracts. so i've got to ask you, how do you know that corners won't be cut, given that these private companies, they won't want to lose money? because we don't launch until it's safe. and it's nasa that says whether

or not it's safe to launch. that's the bottom line answer. are you overreliant, do you think, just on a handful of small companies, or is that just inevitable given the nature of the space industry? well, take, for example, nasa's total budget. i think we have somewhere... a quarter of our spending is going to small businesses. we bring small businesses in at every part of our business, in our science and our earth science, in the exploration programme. but in many cases, we do small businesses directly. and an example of that i mentioned is the eclipse missions, which are going to... three of them are going to land this year on the surface of the moon. that's incentive money for them to do it and then develop a lander and help us

get the information. for example, one of these landers is going to dig on the south pole, to see if there's water underneath the surface. that's hugely important for us to know, because if there is water, there's hydrogen and oxygen, and if there's hydrogen and oxygen, we've got a gas station on the south pole. and, bill, as space exploration becomes increasingly, increasingly commercialised, what do you see is the most likely and profitable uses of the rockets and the satellites that we're sending up there? well, i see the real value for entrepreneurs, to take business off the face of the earth and take it up to low earth orbit and to do manufacturing and experimentation and drug research. already, we have two examples as we speak.

the drug keytruda, which has been so successful with regard to cancer, they have learned a way in space to make that drug more efficiently on earth. the same thing with stem cells. we're going to see fibre optics being learned how to manufacture more effectively in zero gravity orbit. and that's just for starters. and i've got to ask you this, bill, because given that the advances in the private sector means that, what, in the last three years, we've put more satellites up than in the preceding 60 years and there could be another 100,000 in the next decade, i'm just kind of wondering... that's a lot. what are the risks that congestion poses? well, it's real. and it's not only real, it's a problem, because spacejunk is getting in the way. we have to move the space

station and we can only track objects that are big or bigger. —— objects that are that big or bigger. there's a lot of stuff that's smaller. even a paint chip coming in the wrong direction at orbital speed, which is 17,500 miles an hour — a paint chip hitting an astronaut doing an astronaut walk, a spacewalk, that could be fatal. so...this is a major problem for the future. well, the first way to fix it is everybody that launches has to be responsible for not putting any space junk up. if we can stop that proliferation, then other than mother nature bringing it down by the gravitational pull, that will eventually take it into the earth's atmosphere and it'll burn up.

other pieces that are large, that are higher up, we're going to have to go up and tow them much higher into a graveyard orbit. as we know, it was president trump who wanted to return man to the moon for the first time since, what, 1972? bill, how committed is the current administration to that goal? and what's the purpose of putting man back up there? the goal is not only committed, but it's here. we're going back to the moon with a crew next year. why? not to go to the moon. we've been there a half century ago. we're going back to utilise that environment, to learn in order to be able to create an event so that we can send humans all the way to mars. given the rivalry between the us and china, as the world's two biggest economies on earth, both desperate to secure resources for growth, bill, isn't it inevitable that this rivalry will move bill, isn't it inevitable that this rivalry will move

to the moon and to the rest of space? well, it already is. we're in a space race with china to go back to the moon. and what i want to make sure is that we get there first, because we are a signatory of the artemis accords. and the artemis accords are a set of standards now signed by 27 nations, the last of which was india, that we will use space for peaceful purposes and we will respect other people's rights. but the international space treaty, an earlier document, says that you will not claim territory on any celestial body. now, what i'm concerned about is that we find water on the south pole of the moon, china gets there and china says, "this is our area.

"you can't come here. "it's ours." do you happen to remember what happened to the spratly islands in the south china sea? that's what i don't want to happen, on the south pole or any part of the moon or any other celestial body. it should be for all nations. do you get intelligence about china's...own space race? because i'm just basically wondering if you think you can beat them up there. well, we're going to land in another two or three years. china, which has had a very good space programme — they've made huge advances in the last decade — they most recently said 2030. they said that publicly, but i suspect that they're trying to do it earlier. and, bill, let me end on this. you've been up there —

what's it like up in space? you get a whole different perspective. you can see with the naked eye how we're messing it up, cutting down the rainforest in the upper amazon. you can see all of that from space. i didn't see racial division and i didn't see religious division. i didn't see political division. i saw that we're all in this together, as citizens of planet earth. it changes your perspective. bill nelson, the big boss of nasa, an absolute pleasure having you on the show, my friend. good luck with everything and we'll talk to you soon. see you. well, that's it for this week's show. i hope you enjoyed it. don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on the global economy on the bbc news website and the smartphone app. of course, you can also follow me on twitter. tweet me, i'll tweet you back. you can get me @bbcaaron. thanks for watching. i'll see you soon. bye— bye.

hello there. the weekend started off on a soggy note. plenty of rain around. not made much difference for these surfers enjoying the waves coming in at newquay. mind you, there weren't many sun worshippers on the beach. it was pretty dismal, wasn't it? not much sunshine around at all. most of us had extensive outbreaks of rain around, although it was a different story across northern scotland, poking out in the sunshine here. actually, we had temperatures as high as 22 degrees in the highlands, scotland, and this beach kind of looked caribbeanesque in the sunshine. now back to the wet weather story. we've got more of that rain to come over the next few hours, particularly for northern ireland. across northern england, the rain heavy. the rain easing off for a time over the next few hours for the south of england, southern parts of wales. but there'll still be some patches of drizzle around a bit of mist and fog too. for the most part it's not too cool, but temperatures dipping down into single figures in scotland. but it is here where we'll start the day

with a bit of sunshine. that rain band, then, still with us for sunday morning. the rain probably starting to fizzle off in northern ireland, but particularly wet across a swathe of northern england, where we're looking at around 20 to 30 millimetres of rain, double that over the cumbrian fells, the north york moors and across the pennines. could bring some localised surface water flooding. south of that rain band, brighter weather for southern wales, southern england, sunny spells and just a few showers and with the winds coming up from a south—westerly direction, remperatures do get into the 20s, so it will feel quite pleasant in the sunshine. cooler air, though, for scotland. sunny spells, yes, but there will be some passing showers as well. 0n into monday's forecast, our area of low pressure that's brought us the weather through the weekend starts to clear off into the near continent. but before it does do, we are looking at a bit of rain to start off the day, particularly across the midlands, east anglia, south—east england. monday morning, that will clear away. and then it's a day of sunny spells and just a few showers, perhaps some longer spells of rainjust coming into the perhaps some longer spells of rain just coming into the north—west of scotland.

but overall, i think a slightly better kind of weather day. temperatures, though, still below average for the time of year with those north—westerly winds. fortuesday, more showers in the forecast. and then the middle of the new week sees another area of low pressure. well, you know what that means — a lot more rain on the way. so no sign of any prolonged, nice settled sunny spells of weather. it's staying unsettled. showers around on tuesday. longer spells of rain later in the week.

live from washington. this is bbc news.