Science and commerce

Abstract

Science and commerce go hand-in-hand. While space has been somewhat of an exception given the unmanned explorations of the Solar System going forward without obvious commercial benefits, there really were such benefits. Dual-use technologies have worked their magic in both directions. The engineering of the space probes, their cameras and instrumentation, the mini-chemistry labs that landed on numerous extraterrestrial bodies - all of these filtered back to the Earth economy. But in the same vein, developments in materials, microminiaturization of electronics, nanomechanisms, computational power – these technologies allowed for the development of the space probes, the airbags for landing, and the capabilities to explore the Solar System. Science and commerce are symbiotic – it is not science vs. commerce.