From the late 1960s to the 1970s, there was hope for a space boom. This era had the L5 Society and the idea that there would be orbital and Lagrange point colonization and space power satellites. The predicted space boom did not happen because space access and space systems were not made affordable. The Apollo, Starlab era was killed with the bureaucracy that created insanely expensive systems. The Space Shuttle was supposed to be the beginnings of affordable space with a planned $5 million per launch cost. However, the Space shuttles ended up costing over $1 billion per launch.

This time rocket launch and satellite construction costs have been continually improving for the last 6+ years so that there is a proper foundation for continued profits and new business models. Satellites are dropping below a million per satellite and launch costs are dropping below $50 million for 20 tons and soon $10-20 million for 100 tons.