Help us, Obi-Won Elon

The Brooking Institute just published an economic analysis of the latest US Presidential election with some interesting findings. Most prominent of these is the division of aggregate wealth (GDP) apportioned over America's 3,142 counties (or county equivalents). Roughly 600-odd counties account for production of 70% of the country's total GDP, with the overwhelming majority of those counties containing the majority of US citizenry and urban development as well. The authors of the article focus on political/electoral analysis, but my interest is on the potential for market growth illustrated by the remaining 30% of current US GDP generated by the other 2,400 or so counties.

As Elon Musk's Starlink project continues through its development beta phase, the financial growth potential in the 2,400 counties identified by the Brookings Institute article linked above strikes me as being most easily realized by a communications network effectively identical to that which Mr. Musk is in the process of building out as you read these words.

As ever, the devil (and the trick) is in the details of how one goes about doing the deed.

As we approach the final decline of the Old Republic (or alternatively, the growth into the New People's Republic of the United States of America), there remains the presence of Opportunity (a basic strategic premise being that all confrontations inherently present opportunity to those who position themselves to take advantage of same). Opportunity to connect, train, support, and develop a network of individuals creating financial gain for themselves and those new or existing businesses they work with in markets that literally do not exist as of yet being my specific point of interest today.

One market few seem to consider is that of financial support, a credit union (I suggest calling it The Spacers Guild Credit Union) that serves anyone working directly or indirectly in support of off-planet enterprises (and thus all potential members of The Spacers Guild), providing traditional banking services as well as legal representation and continuing education (delivery and certification) for its members (and their families) would be both the most prominent and most basic of these, I think. Such a business, being intended to serve an off-Earth clientele from inception, would seem a natural enough fit to service any Luna, Mars, or Asteroid Belt based market should such develop in future.

In the interim, and given that these underfinanced counties are scattered over all 50 states (and one assumes all 5 US Territories as well), they begin with easy access to the already developed regional networks already centered around existing urban markets to draw upon for potential labor and other networked resources. The lower costs of residing and doing business in rural regions (relative to heavily developed urban environments) are probably not as pronounced as is commonly assumed, but nevertheless are a reality to some degree; it is the previous-to-now lack of connectivity that has been the stopper. Which segues neatly into the next opportunity I spy.

One of Elon Musk's other companies, Tesla, has been straining under the great expense required to achieve the final few percentage points of engineering necessary to achieve device autonomy. I suggest a better financial expenditure (and potential societal, or even civilizational rescue) can be achieved by creating the trained people to operate a semi-autonomous technology, linked together through the Starlink network. These people create businesses analogous to over-the-road drivers, who are organized, trained, and certified through the Spacers Guild. The provision of legal counsel, analogous to that provided to firearms owners by the US Law Shield  legal group, would be one of the benefits available to the membership of the Spacers Guild Credit Union (which, like any other credit union in the US, is a member-owned business, so not a bank).

The jobs Starlink trains these Americans (and, fairly quickly I predict, citizens of other countries too) to perform are as mundane and necessary as the truck drivers I associated them with earlier. One purely space oriented job is that of "orbital garbage collector". When you take into account the huge expense invested in putting all of that now-scrap metal (and other substances and materials) that currently create a hazard to navigation and structural integrity to orbital platforms and satellites, just pushing them into atmospheric burn-up doesn't make sense. Instead, contracting with a (presumably large-ish) number of individuals to capture each object (some of which will require many different operators to coordinate their thrust efforts) and drive it into stable orbit at the L-4 point for eventual re-use seems a much more financially useful alternative (side note: the L-4 La Grange Point is also the logical place to build the infrastructure necessary to converting asteroids into products). Supervising the semi-autonomous fleet of logistical transport and delivery vehicles on the Earth's land and liquid surface would be an even more numerous job opportunity.

Enabling the transition of the digital content creators present day efforts into what I have seen described as a Blog 2.0 structure - that is, a more text-driven melding of the heavily visual presentation technology we currently associate with YouTube and the like - that bypasses the gatekeeping efforts of existing technology providers will be a civilizationally transformative outcome all in itself.

There is apparently a vast pool of money just floating in the air over more than 2,400 largely rural counties in the US today (and no one has any idea how great the potential is elsewhere on the planet). Bringing that down to Earth, and expanding it to the edges of our Solar System, is a challenge we humans simply must succeed at ... or quite literally die not trying.