In 2017, World View cofounder (and former NASA astronaut) Mark Kelly lamented in a Space interview that there are “trillions of dollars spent within the atmosphere, hundreds of billions of dollars spent in orbit around the Earth. But in the stratosphere, basically nothing.”10 Luckily, that may be changing. Tom Olson, the director of business development for UK-based early-stage investment firm Avealto, sees HAPS as a huge opportunity, arguing that it is a “$40 billion untapped market,” and that many around the world are now viewing it as such.
