  We face unprecedented resource stresses in the 21st Century such as global
climate disruptions, freshwater scarcity, expanding energy demands, and the
threat of global pandemics. Historically, societies have relieved resource
stress by increasing trade, innovating technologically, expanding
territorially, regulating, redistributing, making alliances, creating new
economic models, training new skills, as well as conducting war. Do we continue
depleting our already strained resources leading to more regulation,
redistribution, alliances, new economics, and war or do we grow our resources
using innovation, expansion, new economics, and new skills? We present the
argument for evolving space development using asteroid mining as the primary
activity for frontier expansion aided by Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Moon, and Mars
waystations. Forecast space weather is a necessary technology baseline for
developing this pathway. All activity off Earth will require a fundamental
knowledge of how the energetics of space will affect technological progress. We
discuss the critical elements this space economy expansion, including technical
feasibility and infrastructure development, economic and geopolitical viability
complete with the US National Space Weather Program dialogue, ethical and legal
considerations, and risk management. This discussion helps us understand how a
space economy is feasible with the aggregation of many existing and new
technologies into more advanced systems engineering projects.
