LEO, not Earth, is the perfect place to develop the industry we need in order to make orbital spacecraft a viable business.

FORBES: Richard Branson Wants a Population on Mars. Here's How He Can Create It.

This network is a set of geostationary communications satellites (ie, spacecraft that have an orbital period of 24 hours, and so hover over the same place).

ECONOMIST: Technological advances are liberating news reporting

Later this year two spacecraft, one which has been designed by Orbital Sciences, a Virginia-based firm, and another by SpaceX, a Californian company run by Elon Musk, an internet entrepreneur, will make cargo runs to the ISS. The hope is that such craft will soon be able to carry humans too, and at a far lower cost than NASA's efforts.

ECONOMIST: The space shuttle

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is led by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, and is designed to demonstrate reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.

ENGADGET: USAF relaunches its first X-37B on a slightly less mysterious spaceflight