re: Opening a space frontier
The first space market is the one involving customers on Earth.
We know about communication, navigation and observation satellites.
However, in all 3 cases, unmanned aerial vehicles could do a much better job: they fly for a long time only above the aeria of the customer.
A US farmer is only interested in obtaining information about his place than about the other side of the world.
UAVs are much cheaper than satellites in GEO or Sunsynchronous orbits.
So, yes, space is still an area where governments are interested (if only for military, prestige and R & D matters) (luckily!).
Raoul