The entire economic ecosystem of mining, manufacturing, construction, and energy production built to operate in space or on other celestial bodies, using primarily in-situ resources. The goal is to break the "tyranny of the rocket equation" by not hauling everything from Earth. This includes asteroid mining for metals and water, lunar solar foundries, Martian cement production using local regolith, and orbital shipyards. It's the industrial revolution, re-enacted in a vacuum.
Offworld Industries Example: A fully realized Offworld Industry chain might look like: Robots on Ceres mine water ice and metals -> This is processed at a Lagrange point factory into fuel and structural components -> These components are used to build massive solar power satellites in orbit -> The energy is beamed to a growing Mars colony, which uses it to power its own local industries. It's a self-fueling economic engine beyond Earth.
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 3, 2026
Get the Offworld Industries mug.