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Sep 4, 2021 - Science

3. The final frontier opens for business

Photo illustration of a welder working over a red planet with the moon in the background

Photo illustration: Annelise Capossela. Photo: Alfred T. Palmer/Getty Images

A drastic reduction in launch costs is helping fuel a vision of space not just as a realm of exploration or science, but real industry.

The big picture: Over the short term, space will likely become a place to manufacture high-precision, high-value products that benefit from a microgravity environment. But in the future, as Jeff Bezos noted in July after returning from his space trip, there could be a push to move heavy, polluting industries to operate in space.

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