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Space Economics

Bill Ingalls/NASA
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NASA via Getty Images

Most people have a fascination with space because of the grand themes — exploration, the search for aliens, going to the moon, maybe someday living on Mars! Matt Weinzeirl of Harvard Business School is just as fascinated, but for a different reason.

Matt says the economic model of space activity was once centralized, and focused mainly on the provision of public goods. But over time, that model has evolved, and NASA has found a potentially fruitful way to partner with the private sector in developing the space economy of the future.

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Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.
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