[joshmarlow]

NOTE: The below suggestion is assuming Starship pans out and launch costs drop dramatically.

The way I see it, there are 3 (overlapping?) ways of making money in space:

1) put something up there (like a satellite) 2) take something down (asteroid mining, space based manufacturing, etc) 3) do something in space you can only do there

Here's an idea that falls into category 3 that I've been kicking around - space based entertainment. Maybe design a new sport that's only playable in space (or start with a currently popular one and extend it with space-only dynamics).

You would definitely need some significant capital and it'll be several years before you could actually put some athletes in space. But assuming launch costs are cheap enough and human transport is reliable, I don't think it would require speculative new technologies. Possibly the biggest technical gap would be in building large enough structures for the sport. The work of Bigelow Areospace or Nanoracks seems to be going in the right direction.

[michalf6]

You may want to look at Red Bull Air Race. It also was an extremely expensive novelty sport and they shut it down after a few years.

[DennisP]

The enemy's gate is down.

[joshmarlow]

Exactly. I think Ender's Game is what got me thinking along these lines.