## 8 Discussion
This often leads to redundancy in capabilities and suboptimal allocation of resources from a purely economic standpoint, yet these redundancies may be rational from a sovereignty, security, and resilience perspective. Consider GNSS systems. In fact, a single global system (e.g., GPS) could serve all users, maximizing technical efficiency and clearly eliminating waste. In practice, however, the world hosts four major GNSS constellations: GPS (U.S.), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU),and BeiDou (China). Each was developed not for efficiency but as a hedge against strategic dependence on a foreign system. These navigational constellations are highly capital-intensive, and their coexistence appears inefficient from a narrow market logic. GNSS is crucial not only for civilian navigation but also for precision targeting, military logistics, and intelligence synchronization. In the context of geopolitical rivalry, such redundancy could deepen rather than retreat. The situation is similar, though less mature, in the domain of low-latency satellite internet, currently dominated by SpaceX's Starlink, thus raising concerns about monopoly power. Therefore, it is not surprising that other major initiatives are planned to catch up: Guowang (China), Amazon Kuiper (U.S.), and IRIS2 (EU), which will create an obvious redundancy of satellite infrastructure; however, dozens of thousands of satellites in overlapping orbits [122; 123; 124]. Again, it will be tremendously costly and environmentally risky (e.g., space debris, light pollution caused by satellite constellations, and increasingly critical for astronomy). Yet, from a security standpoint, relying on a foreign-controlled constellation is increasingly seen as unacceptable, particularly in conflict or crisis scenarios. Regarding allocative efficiency assessment in the space economy, it can be argued that this criterion, while central to classical industrial organization analysis, may not be fully adequate as the indicator of performance in a sector as unique as the space economy. The key role of the production of public goods should also be considered and balanced. These outputs are non-rivalrous and non-excludable, making it unclear what an \"optimal\" allocation would look like in competitive market terms, because, in such cases, allocative efficiency cannot be judged solely through price signals or market outcomes. Considering space's role in national security and geopolitical conditions, resource allocation often reflects strategic priorities rather than consumer preferences or willingness to pay. An additional problem is the absence of global governance, while space exploration and exploitation have global consequences by definition. It means there is no shared benchmark for common performance assessment. There is no shared antitrust framework for cross-border oligopolies or monopolies. The trade-offs between economic efficiency and the production of public goods are complicated issues as such. However, they are becoming even more complicated, considering the potential conflict between national and global perspectives. The dominance of firms like SpaceX may denote monopoly power in the hands of one controversial man for other countries; however, for Americans, it could strengthen their public good in the form of national security and geopolitical leverage. State control over space infrastructure and its supply could not be the most economically efficient, but for the Chinese, it could be the way to demonstrate civilizational leadership in space. In the absence of the global state, each nation defines welfare in its own way. Thus, it is not possible to reduce space economy performance to a common denominator. Therefore, the traditional Industrial Organization goal, namely minimizing market power to maximize consumer surplus and secure social welfare, loses clarity in a setting where market power benefits one nation but harms another. Finally, let us look at the limitations of this study as such.