Interest of all things space has been on the rise in the last few years. According to NASA's press statement, their most recent call for astronaut applications have turned out a record breaking number of hopefuls. The announcement was made only last December and as of the closing date of the application, more than 18,300 people have submitted their resumes. This by far is the largest number of applicants which has broken the record made in 1978 when 8000 applicants expressed their intentions to try out for the position.
It seems like individuals are not the only ones who would like their piece of the space race pie. Recently, a research conducted by the Tauri Group revealed that businessmen have also expressed their desire to take part in space missions.
According the team behind Tauri Group's research, venture capitalist groups have invested a total of $1.8 billion dollars just last year. This amount trumps the investments allocated for commercial space travel in the last fifteen years combined.
"More venture capital ($1.8 billion) was invested in space in 2015 than in the prior 15 years, combined. More than 50 venture capital firms invested in space deals in 2015, the most in any year" read a part of the report.
Amongst all the start-up space companies, one brand seems to have taken the lion's share of the $1.8 billion. Elon Musk's SpaceX managed to nab investments amounting to $1 billion from different private entities.
One of the investors have anonymously shared with the Tauri Group what he thinks the reason is for the spike in interest surrounding space start-ups. According to this insider, investing in companies such as SpaceX can now turn up profit that was not possible before.
"You can now make money with space investment, which wasn't largely a true statement before."