[daedrdev]

Yeah I feel like often it's the complete opposite. For example at the start of the industrial revolution engines were invented to pump water out of deep coal mines because even with the first engines horrendous inefficiency at the bottom of the mine coal was basically free at the manual labor to pump water had gotten to expensive.

So similarly, spaceflight needs some initial process, say mining or a zero g industrial process, that would drive the further building of infrastructure and productivity.