But there's potentially an enormous amount of money along the way - first via taking satellites up and contracting with the US to take astronauts, then potentia

But there's potentially an enormous amount of money along the way - first via taking satellites up and contracting with the US to take astronauts, then potentially providing infrastructure for space mining and heavy industry. There's also orbital tourism. One way or another, space is going to end up being a valuable industry if only by virtue of the fact that access to space will be a critical national security issue - imagine if China monopolized access to space and could take down satellites at will.