It's easy to get caught up in the high-fantasy sci-fi politicking, here. For the past 50 years, there have been private American space ventures promising everyt

It's easy to get caught up in the high-fantasy sci-fi politicking, here. For the past 50 years, there have been private American space ventures promising everything from round-trip tourism to asteroid mining, and it just hasn't happened. There's no shortage of imaginative ways to leverage space, but the realistically rewarding applications are quite limited. Orbital inference isn't intended to break even, or present a significant risk. It has every hallmark of a marketing stunt.