From the introduction: Back when the cost of orbital workstations came down, some nations toyed with the idea of passing laws requiring the corporations to do their dangerous work in orbit. Of course, these laws never got off the drawing board. These days, however, a lot of corporations are realizing than an accident in space is cheaper to contain than an accident on earth(the savings in PR alone almost makes it worth it). Those that have come to this realization have moved a lot of their stuff up the well. Of course, we all learned the hard way that what goes up must come down.