Open Source
Most abstractly, Engineering as external to its consumption produces three kinds of value for its consumers: creation, development and maintenance of complex products. These products are founded on information, and the knowledge of how to use or apply that information.
The methodologies from Open Source Software Engineering include a public internet repository for engineering information, and a public internet community for the scientists and engineers fluent in that information.
The open methodologies maximize engineering value by combining the efforts of any and all interested scientists and engineers for the creation, development and maintenance of a particular system.
The open methodologies maximize scientific value by making available to interested scientists and analysts every detail of the function, operation and performance of engineering systems. As a result, scientists and analysts are informed and able to inform of the strengths and weaknesses of open engineering systems.
And, the open methodologies maximize economic value by freely distributing the engineering information products to interested engineers and technicians for the development of new free and commercial products and enterprises. This fact represents a substantial educational value, informing the technology community with research and development.
Space Flight
In the half century since humanity's first space flights, we have only touched the tip of the space economy with our efforts in space based science, engineering and communications. Broader elements of the future space economy are evident in tourism and asteroid mining, while we know from our history that new economies are necessarily unpredictable. In 1991, for example, the present internet economy was not predicted in any particularly interesting detail -- while most people were pessimistic of a substantial outcome.
Likewise the future space economy is largely unpredictable. Although far more constrained than the internet economy, any economy can be illustrated with a pyramid metaphor for classes of participation and activity statistics. We know that the heights of that pyramid can be seen from this distance, today. And we know that the base of that pyramid, in large numbers of participants and activities, will need solutions to the various constraints governing participation and activity.
H2+O2
Chief among the constraints on space participation and activity is the role of mass and energy in robotic and human intercourse with the extraterrestrial frontier. Having plentiful water and sunlight, we have a virtually free solution -- in every sense, with no practical economic externalities. Water can be separated using wind or solar electricity into Hydrogen (H2) and Oxygen (O2).
Trading engineering effort for economic value, we can produce and liquify Hydrogen and Oxygen for a variable cost of zero and a fixed cost within the reach of very large numbers of individuals and groups.
This fact makes possible the broadest possible base for the future space economy, and needs only to be realized in a broad and inclusive way in order to open the door to the future.
