Two astronauts scheduled to spend a few days in orbit are stranded on the International Space Station for months, following technical problems with a new spacecraft built by Boeing.

But from launching satellites to plans for a permanent presence on the moon and a mission to Mars, the business of space promises to be very profitable.

Hello, I'm Russell Padmore,

and in Business Daily, I'm examining how private investors believe they'll reap huge rewards beyond Earth. But as Boeing has already learned from its troubled starliner, it's a risky business.

It was NASA who made the call that they didn't think the craft was safe

for them to return on. It's a real blow for Boeing. The aerospace company faces the embarrassment of

its American rival SpaceX bringing the astronauts back to Earth. Boeing's setback highlights how

NASA's plan to encourage competition among private companies

is struggling to get off the launch pad.

These companies own the intellectual property.

They own the hardware.

They own their rockets.

They own their space capsules.

They can do whatever they want with them.

And a former astronaut explains how private investment is speeding up plans for bases on the moon.

No matter who is building the spacecraft, they understand that this is a mission to really further our knowledge for going back to the moon and going on to Mars.

I personally love having the commercial spaceflight industry more and more involved.

Business Daily and the prospect of lucrative profits in space.

1957 and the former USSR shocks the world by putting the first artificial satellite into orbit.

The signal from Sputnik 1 during the Cold War

showed the U.S. was running second in the space race.

It forced America to invest more in its own space program.

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