DTN 123: Global Space Economy Breaks New Record

Plus: NASA taps industry for interplanetary communication, fusion reactor alchemy, AI etiquette, robots eating robots, first antimatter quantum bit, and more.

July 25, 2025

“Fusion is going to change what we think of as the energy industry. By the end of the 21st century, we'll be looking at an energy industry that's not about fuel but about the machines and technology that release energy from atoms. It's going to be a massive manufacturing industry, which justifies public funding to help seed and build this new sector.”

“The growth was dominated by the commercial sector, which brought in $480B in revenue—accounting for more than three-quarters of the space economy last year. Commercial PNT services drove $231.4B in revenue, making it the top commercial space sector, followed by ground stations, direct-to-home TV, and satcom. 

The remaining 22% was tied to government spending, with the US civil space budget topping the global charts. China, Europe, and Japan, in that order, rounded out the other top spenders.”

Archivists at the University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Library are using the ScanRobot 2.0 to autonomously scan and digitize rare manuscripts. It takes days - if not weeks - for one librarian to scan a single book, but the ScanRobot can process up to 2,500 books per hour. The robot is so promising that two members of the rare book department trained for an entire week to become certified book robot operators. (via Popular Science)

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