Meet the Astropreneurs: Five Companies That Hope to Conquer Mars

For some who gaze into the night sky, dollar signs twinkle among the stars.

Mars has captured the imaginations of scientists and explorers for hundreds of years — tempted by both its history as well as its future, undoubtedly entwined with ours — but the not-so-distant planet has also invigorated other big dreamers, often with deep pockets.

“Space flight has always been commercial,” says Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in Destination: Mars, a film airing in November on The Nature of Things. “It’s companies, for profit, building hardware.”

The space economy exceeds $300 billion globally and it’s growing rapidly, with much of this growth coming from commercial projects. Brilliant minds and prominent billionaires are attracted to this dazzling potential — giving rise to a new generation of “astropreneurs.”

The Moon Walker

Dr. Susmita Mohanty is CEO and co-founder of Earth2Orbit (E2O), India’s first space start-up (but her third space enterprise — earning her The Moon Walker nickname). E2O creates simulators, satellite imagery data, launch services, prototypes for living capsules and spacesuits and concepts for transporting humans to the moon and Mars. Mohanty wants India to capture at least a quarter of the global space economy and dreams about the future of commercial flights — as an entrepreneur and consultant, she’s certain to be at the forefront of both endeavours. 

The Young Billionaire

Any conversation about the commercialization of space — and Mars, in particular — would be incomplete without mention of billionaire Elon Musk, the South African-Canadian-American entrepreneur. Wealthy from his tech start-ups (including PayPal), Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 at the tender age of 31 years old. The aerospace manufacturer builds rockets and provides space transport services and has won multiple contracts from NASA and the U.S. military.  On September 27, Musk announced an ambitious plan to travel to Mars within the next ten years and build a city on the Red Planet.  The price of a ticket? Around 200,000 — the median cost of an American house.

The Branson Brand

If it’s audacious, ambitious and bold, Richard Branson must be involved. Virgin Galactic, founded by Branson in 2004, develops and builds commercial spacecraft for space tourism — currently focused on suborbital flights (reaching a high altitude without entering orbit, and then returning) for those who can afford the $250,000 ticket. NASA expects that humans will travel to Mars by 2030 and Branson is determined to have his brand there. 

The Everything Store

In 2000, Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos expanded his market-domination horizons to include outer space. He launched Blue Origin, a private aerospace manufacturer that develops and builds rockets, and aims to make space flight more affordable and accessible to private clients. Like Branson, Bezos believes that space tourism will be an additional driving force in space exploration, and is positioning Blue Origin to be a key player in the race to space. Perhaps Amazon drones will one day deliver online shopping to humans living on Mars.

The Unicorns: New Kids on the Block

As the goal of reaching Mars with human flights gets closer to our grasp, established billionaires will have to share the field with brilliant young start-ups as new, high-valued companies come out to play.

Young astropreneurs have already attracted serious attention — start-up Terra Bella was purchased by Google for $500 million in 2014. The start-up, founded by four Stanford grads, provides high definition satellite imaging and data of Earth.  Clients will be able to see updated images of any spot of earth five to seven times a day. Their satellites have already been put to use searching for the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. The end goal? To index the world in the same way that google has indexed the internet.

The Terra Bella purchase signalled the inevitable reality to the broader tech community — the space race is on.

The Nature of Things airs Destination: Mars on November 3.