Space is hard and expensive. The cost of the International Space Station has passed $150 billion. Returning to the moon under NASA’s Artemis program will exceed $30 billion just to land the first crew on the surface for the first time in 50 years. Yet the vision for space exploration and development far exceeds these modest endeavors. The kind of funding required far exceeds the resources of any government and private entity. NASA has made strides in the past decades on sharing costs with the private sector, and this trend certainly needs to continue. But the basic public/private partnerships may not be enough to fulfill the vision of establishing new branches of civilizations beyond Earth. To address this issue, Beyond Earth is initiating a review of advanced financing options to fund large scale space infrastructure and habitat projects. Beyond Earth has invited the authors of several well-considered advanced financing models to subject their work to a panel of experts for their reaction and evaluation based on a set of predetermined criteria. To kick off this initiative, Beyond Earth will host a virtual event featuring financial experts who will help to set the tone for this project. They will discuss the complexity of macro scale space investment and the range of possible solutions to spread the investment risk among stakeholders. In general, they will comment on the several financing mechanisms, including a government-chartered private corporation, a financing through private markets, and a government-backed investment corporation, among others. PROGRAM
