Designing for Permanence: Why the Future of Space Must Be Circular

As momentum builds behind commercial stations, in-space manufacturing, orbital transfer vehicles, and microgravity research platforms, one question is becoming unavoidable:

What kind of economic system is all this growth built on?

Taking the main stage at spaceNEXT 2026 in the Vault Theater on February 19, Kyle Cybul, Founder and Executive Director of the Clean Orbit Foundation, urged the industry to confront that structural question directly.

“The space economy today is more capable than it’s been at any point in history,” Cybul said. “And it’s growing at a pace that we’ve never experienced before.”

But growth alone, he argued, is not the same as durability.

Visible Progress vs. Structural Progress

Cybul began by acknowledging the extraordinary momentum across the commercial space sector.

Operators are planning orbital infrastructure. ISAM services are emerging. Commercial stations are being designed. Capital is flowing. International actors are entering the market.

“Space is no longer niche or speculative at this point,” he said. “Real business cases are being made. Long-term strategies are being discussed openly.”

Yet as activity accelerates, Cybul posed a deeper challenge:

“What structures, assumptions, and operating models are we building this growth on?”

Historically, space operations have followed a linear model:

• Extract resources

• Build spacecraft

• Launch

• Operate

• Dispose

“Take, make, use, dispose,” he summarized.

When activity was sparse, that system appeared functional. But as object counts scale from dozens to thousands, systemic strain becomes visible — rising debris, satellite breakups, congestion, and increasingly complex conjunction coordination.

“Individually these look like technical challenges,” Cybul said. “But collectively they point to something much deeper and systemic.”

Instability increases risk. Risk compounds. Over time, capital efficiency erodes — even if innovation continues.

Designing for Continuity Instead of Replacement

Cybul proposed an alternative framework: the circular space economy.

At its core, he described it as “a systems-level model in how we design and sustain assets in space.”

Rather than treating missions as disposable, the circular model aims to:

• Preserve functional value

• Extend asset life

• Regenerate materials

• Enable reuse and repurposing

“It’s not just about reducing waste,” he emphasized. “Its primary focus is operational and economic.”

In other words, circularity is not a sustainability add-on — it is a structural requirement for scaling ambition.

He pointed to current industry priorities as evidence that circular principles are already emerging:

• ISAM only works if assets are designed for servicing and modification

• Orbital infrastructure assumes continuity

• Microgravity manufacturing requires repeatability and sustained operations

• Commercial platforms depend on shared use and long-term operability

“These are inherently circular ideas,” Cybul said, “even if we don’t see them that way yet.”

Permanence as an Economic Imperative

The broader objective, he argued, is permanence.

Not symbolic permanence — but economic permanence.

“Permanence doesn’t mean flags and habitats for the sake of exploration,” he said. “It’s what happens when capital remains deployed, infrastructure stays productive, and value accumulates over longer periods of time.”

As activity expands beyond low Earth orbit into cis-lunar space and beyond, linear replacement models become impractical. Resupply slows. Replacement costs rise. Risk tolerance narrows.

“The farther we go,” Cybul noted, “the more continuity and regeneration become mission-critical prerequisites.”

Frontiers eventually become infrastructure. And infrastructure must endure.

The Bridge Framework

To illustrate the transition, Cybul presented a conceptual bridge.

On one side: today’s linear space economy.
On the other: a sustained, circular, permanent economy.

The bridge itself represents the circular transition.

Its pillars include:

Servicing: Inspection, refueling, repair, recovery.

Logistics and Resource Operations: Transport, transfer, resupply, distribution.

Regeneration: Reassembly, in-space manufacturing, recycling.

Supporting those pillars are platforms — depots, processing hubs, logistics nodes, and shared infrastructure that allow multiple actors to operate within a cohesive ecosystem.

“The goal of the bridge isn’t to cross it once,” Cybul said. “It’s to build it strong enough so everything can come across next — more activity, more actors, more ambition.”

Progress, Not Perfection

Cybul was careful to avoid framing the issue as a crisis.

“I do apologize if anything has sounded like doom and gloom,” he said. “That’s not the intent.”

Instead, he positioned circularity as a natural evolution of a maturing industry.

“This isn’t a radical change from where we are today. It’s the natural evolution of a space economy starting to take itself seriously.”

He concluded with a direct challenge:

“If we truly want a space economy that attracts sustained capital, long-term talent, and confidence, we must build for permanence and not simply for achievement.”

The revolution, he said, is already underway.

The question is whether it will be pursued purposefully.