  Utilisation of the material and energy resources of the Solar System will be
essential for the development of a sustainable space economy and associated
infrastructure. Science will be a major beneficiary of a space economy, even if
its major elements (e.g. space tourism, resource extraction activities on the
Moon or asteroids, and large-scale in-space construction capabilities) are not
developed with science primarily in mind. Examples of scientific activities
that would be facilitated by the development of space infrastructure include
the construction of large space telescopes, ambitious space missions (including
human missions) to the outer Solar System, and the establishment of scientific
research stations on the Moon and Mars (and perhaps elsewhere). In the more
distant future, an important scientific application of a well-developed space
infrastructure may be the construction of interstellar space probes for the
exploration of planets around nearby stars.
