Spaceflight and exploration have changed tremendously over the past 25 years.
Since 1999, we've seen the birth of a vibrant private spaceflight sector, led by Elon Musk's SpaceX, and the rise of an ambitious and increasingly accomplished new space power: China. (India has made great strides as well.)
The next quarter-century promises to be action-packed as well, with humanity taking ever-greater leaps into the final frontier — perhaps all the way to the moon and Mars. Predicting the future is a fool's errand, but let's do so anyway. Here's a look at a few of the big-picture spaceflight trends that seem set to unfold between now and 2049.
The private space boom continues
SpaceX launches people to orbit regularly these days, both for NASA and private customers such as Houston-based company Axiom Space. And Boeing's Starliner capsule recently embarked on its first-ever crewed flight, a test mission that sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company, are human-spaceflight players as well, though they operate closer to the ground: Both companies have launched paying customers on short trips to suborbital space over the past few years.
And that's just the crewed side of private spaceflight. SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets currently carry satellites to orbit, as does Firefly Aerospace's Alpha, Rocket Lab's Electron, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur, Arianespace's Ariane 6 and Vega, and a handful of private Chinese vehicles.
The payload side is booming in an even bigger way, thanks to lower launch costs and advances in optics and electronics that have made it possible to build highly capable satellites cheaply, quickly and efficiently. San Francisco-based companies Planet and Capella Space operate their own constellations of Earth-observing satellites, for example, selling the imagery these craft collect (optical in Planet's case, and radar for Capella) to customers for a variety of purposes.
Three different private companies — Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, Houston's Intuitive Machines and Japanese outfit ispace — have sent robotic landers to the moon. Astrobotic and ispace failed in their attempts, but Intuitive Machines succeeded, setting a craft named Odysseus down near the lunar south pole this past February.
And then there's the elephant in the room: satellite megaconstellations. Chief among them is SpaceX's Starlink broadband system, which currently consists of more than 6,100 operational satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), all of which have launched since 2018. OneWeb has built out its own LEO internet constellation over the past few years as well, sending up more than 600 satellites.
As that woefully incomplete rundown shows, there's a lot of commercial activity in the final frontier these days. And it's only going to get busier in the coming years, according to Aaron Kemmer, co-founder of the space-habitat company Max Space.
"I think we're in this multi-decade space boom," Kemmer told Space.com.
"We went from single-digit space startups to thousands of space startups, with very little venture capital to billions in venture capital," said Kemmer, who co-founded the pioneering in-space manufacturing company Made In Space back in 2010. "It's already starting. I think it's gonna go exponential."
Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight
The addition of even more rockets to the world's stable could push things along, lowering prices by increasing competition further. And that's in the works; Rocket Lab is working on a brawny, partially reusable new vehicle called Neutron, for example. A number of other companies — Relativity Space, ABL Space Systems, Stoke Space, Skyrora and Rocket Factory Augsburg, to name a few — aim to get rockets up and running soon as well.
Then there are the coming heavy lifters. Blue Origin's partially reusable New Glenn rocket could lift off for the first time later this year, and SpaceX has already launched four test flights of the fully reusable Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built.
SpaceX is developing Starship — which is 400 feet (122 meters) tall in its current iteration, and could grow substantially larger — to get people and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond. The company envisions the huge rocket flying incredibly frequently and efficiently, with per-launch costs as low as $2 million to $3 million. That price point would be truly revolutionary, allowing many more customers to get their payloads up. (For perspective: SpaceX currently charges about $67 million for each Falcon 9 mission.)
Rockets, both new and existing, will get better over the next 25 years as well, as things tend to do. And that rather prosaic observation shouldn't be discounted.
"Increases in reliability, I think, are one possible development in the next quarter-century that could make a meaningful difference," said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.
Newly developed industries could help the off-Earth economy go exponential as well. Multiple players are now getting into off-Earth manufacturing, for example, including California-based company Varda Space. This past February, the startup returned to Earth a test capsule containing space-grown crystals of Ritonavir, an antiviral drug used to treat HIV and hepatitis C. Also this year, Space Solar, a United Kingdom startup, carried out a lab demonstration of some of the tech for its planned space-based power station.
Such nascent off-Earth efforts could end up having a huge impact, according to Kemmer.
"I don't know if it's mining or production, but my hunch is, there'll be something [sourced in space] that is valuable enough that it's useful to people on Earth. And that'll be a huge catalyst," he said. "Once you have that, then the flywheel really starts to spin."
There are lots of ideas out there, Kemmer added, also citing in-space data servers for cryptocurrency mining as a possible future profit-maker. And entrepreneurs are investigating many of them at the moment, which bodes well for our off-Earth future.
"When there's a thousand bats being swung, one of them will hit a home run," Kemmer said.
Related: Can space-based solar power really work? Here are the pros and cons.
Dealing with the space junk problem?
This increased activity could make humanity's growing space junk problem even worse over the next quarter-century. Starlink, for example, could balloon to a mind-boggling 42,000 satellites in LEO. And that's just a single megaconstellation; Amazon plans to loft its own big broadband network, called Project Kuiper, and the Chinese company Hongqing Technology has designs on one as well.
Space junk is plenty worrisome right now; according to the European Space Agency (ESA), there are about 40,500 objects at least 4 inches (10 centimeters) wide zooming around Earth today, and about 130 million debris pieces between 0.04 inches and 0.4 inches (1 millimeter to 1 cm) in diameter.
Even those tiny shards could seriously damage a satellite or other spacecraft, given the tremendous speeds at which space objects travel. For example, the ISS, which orbits at an average altitude of 250 miles (400 kilometers), zips around our planet at about 17,500 mph (28,000 kph).
But there's some good news on this front as well — namely, that many in the space community recognize the problem and believe action is needed. Last year, for instance, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission created a new Space Bureau, with a stated goal to help deal with the space junk issue.
Technology could play a role as well, helping to revive dying satellites or bring especially dangerous pieces of debris down to Earth quickly and efficiently. And private industry could end up doing some of the the heavy lifting here. The Japanese company Astroscale's mission statement revolves around space sustainability and debris mitigation, for example, and it has already sent a probe to rendezvous with and inspect a big piece of junk in orbit. In the near future, Astroscale plans to deorbit this same piece of debris — the defunct upper stage of a Japanese H-2A rocket — in a removal test that's a collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Private companies will also doubtless play a role in keeping tabs on space junk in the future, for they're already doing this now. Take the California-based startup LeoLabs: It provides customers with tracking data, including real-time "conjunction alerts," which warn of close approaches that may warrant evasive maneuvers.
Related: The Kessler Syndrome and the space debris problem
China still rising
China's rise is one of the biggest spaceflight stories of the past 25 years. In 2003, it became the third nation to launch people to orbit, after the Soviet Union and the United States. In 2022, China finished assembling its own space station, called Tiangong, and now regularly launches astronaut crews there for six-month stints.
China has also developed and tested anti-satellite technology, much to the consternation of the international space community. And it's increasingly active in satellite development and launch; China sent 67 orbital missions aloft in 2023, which ranked second to the United States' 109.
Some of China's spacecraft have gone very far afield; the nation's first Mars mission, Tianwen 1, delivered an orbiter and a lander to the Red Planet in February 2021. And the country's Chang'e moon program has notched a series of successes, including the first-ever soft landing on the moon's far side and the first return of samples to Earth from that mysterious, understudied region.
China shows no signs of slowing down over the next 25 years. Indeed, it plans to ramp up in many areas, including lunar exploration. For example, China aims to establish a crewed moon base in the 2030s — something that the U.S. also aims to do via NASA's Artemis program.
"China clearly has decided that space capability is important, and they're trying to develop a comprehensive capability," Logsdon told Space.com.
"With a command economy, they're pretty good at doing what they say they're going to do. So, I think that they will continue to be a major player," he added. (Logsdon did note, however, that long-term stability is a question mark for the current Chinese government, as it is for all authoritarian regimes.)
Some American officials have therefore stressed that the U.S. is engaged in a moon race with China, which is part of a broader competition for supremacy in the final frontier.
"It's no secret that China has a goal to surpass the United States by 2045 as global leaders in space. We can't allow this to happen," Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) said during a hearing about Artemis held by the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology on Jan. 17.
New, or newly important, players could make a big name for themselves in the coming years as well. India is one obvious candidate — among other ambitious goals, it aims to start launching people in the next few years — but there are others, too.
"Could you have a resurgence of Russia? Maybe," Logsdon said. "The various emirates seem to be fairly serious about developing space capability, and they certainly have money. So what does that imply?"
Overall, however, Logsdon thinks that the near future of spaceflight and exploration will be dominated by two competing coalitions of spacefaring nations, one led by the United States and the other led by China. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"If we can keep that competition as peaceful competition, I think that spurs progress," he said.
Related: How China will land astronauts on the moon by 2030
Living and working off Earth
The International Space Station is set to retire in 2030, but that doesn't mean humanity will lose its toehold in Earth orbit. NASA is encouraging the development of private space stations, with the hope that at least one such outpost will be up and running before the ISS is steered to its fiery death.
And there are some major players involved in this effort, including Axiom Space, which plans to launch its first test module to the ISS in 2026; Blue Origin, Amazon, Boeing and Sierra Space, which are working together on the Orbital Reef outpost; and Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Nanoracks and Voyager Space, whose envisioned station is called Starlab.
It's therefore probable that at least a few private space stations will be operating by 2049, and it's likely that China will continue its crewed presence in LEO over the next quarter-century as well. But how realistic are the bolder off-Earth settlement options — the moon and Mars?
The moon is obviously the better bet, given its proximity to Earth — getting there takes just a few days, compared to six to eight months for a Mars journey — and the fact that the U.S. and China are already planning out lunar bases. Indeed, both Kemmer and Logsdon expressed optimism that people will be living and working on the moon by 2049.
"I think at least 100 [people]," Kemmer said. "I'd be sad if it wasn't at least 100."
A moon population in the thousands is possible, he added, if Starship delivers on its immense promise — and if there is at least one super-heavy-lift competitor around to drive, or keep, launch costs down. Other advances would help greatly as well, including improved habitat technology — cost-efficient, roomy and safe living spaces for people on the moon, which Max Space aims to provide with its inflatable modules.
National governments would likely be the first customers for moon habitats, Kemmer said, with private industry following in these anchor tenants' wake. A variety of business could be done on the moon, he added, from tourism to off-Earth manufacturing.
Logsdon thinks the moon might support a maximum of a few thousand people by 2049, citing humanity's presence in Antarctica as a good comparison. Rotating crews of scientists and support personnel populate Earth's southernmost continent, with rules in place that ban or limit extractive activity such as mining.
"I think something like that may happen on the moon," Logsdon said.
Mars is more of a wild card, however. We have the technical ability to establish an outpost on the Red Planet today, provided radiation exposure doesn't prove to be a showstopper, Logsdon said. And the U.S. government has continued to fund NASA's crewed Mars work over the years, albeit at relatively low levels. So, there's reason to hope for some kind of human presence on the Red Planet by 2049.
"I think we'll continue attempts to send humans to Mars, which might succeed in the next 25 years. But a large-scale population — that, I really doubt," Logsdon said. "Where's the profit in going to Mars?"
Helping to establish a large-scale population on the Red Planet is the long-held dream of Elon Musk; the billionaire has repeatedly said that he founded SpaceX back in 2002 with this goal in mind. So there could be a wild-card solution to the wild-card problem of Mars settlement: the world's richest man devoting his considerable financial and technological resources toward making a historic leap for humanity.
That is indeed possible. But history tells us that space fans — generally a forward-looking bunch — would probably be wise to keep their optimism in check.
"If you look back at where people thought we would be in 1999 and compare it to where we're at now, I think you'd find that hopes outran performance and reality," Logsdon said. "So, any thoughts I have about the next 25 years are tempered by the recognition that not everything's going to happen that people think."
