While Naveen Jain is best known for helping to start Moon Express, the first company that proposes to make money by mining the moon, he made his fortunate during the Dot.Com boom in Silicon Valley and then Seattle, working for a number of companies before founding a number of his own. Now, with the lunar mining company aiming for its first expedition to the lunar surface in late 2017 as part of the Google Lunar X-Prize, Jain is returning his attention to Earth with a new startup called Blue Dot, inspired by the late Carl Sagan’s description of our planet as “the Pale Blue Dot.”

According to CNBC, Blue Dot intends to exploit a hitherto underutilized resource, that being the science and technology research conducted by the United States government. The federal government spends tens of billions of dollars every year on research and development. Some of the results of the research wind up in the private sector; NASA is forever touting the “spinoffs” generated by its various activities. But, all too often, the products of the R&D sit on the shelf, not quite ready for commercial use.

Blue Dot proposes to find promising technologies that the government has developed, license them, form companies around them, and try to create usable products. The research facilities would be granted royalties should the businesses pan out.

Jain is interested in developing products that will not only make money but will help people, a philosophy of doing well by doing good. Jain explains a couple of promising technologies that the company is looking at.

“Blue Dot is working on a variety of projects, including a way to harvest ambient energy to create a wireless charger. That would enable an entire new field of medical devices that are held back by batteries and charging cords today. Another is a small handheld device that uses non-invasive technologies, like ultrasound, to identify bacterial and viral pathogens in the human body. It could be used to make early diagnoses of Alzheimer’s, cancer, and other diseases.”

The wireless charger sounds like it would be a boon to anyone with a handheld device, such as a smart phone or a tablet. The medical device sounds as if it would work like Dr. McCoy’s medical tricorder from “Star Trek.”

While these and no doubt other ideas are technology “moon shots,” Jain is not neglecting his real moon shot enterprise.

“We just made history as the first private space company to submit a payload application to the FAA for a space mission to the moon in 2017. Up until now, only government missions have ever ventured to the moon and beyond-Earth destinations. This is an interim arrangement allowing us to execute our business plan under U.S. law and the Outer Space Treaty.

“In December, the company won the launch contract from Google Lunar XPRIZE to land an unmanned aircraft on the moon, travel across its surface, and send high-definition images and video back to Earth by 2017. We’re planning three missions using our company’s robotic MX-1E lunar lander on the Rocket Lab USA’s Electron rocket, from either New Zealand or the U.S. During those missions we will explore for minerals and rare elements.

“Our ultimate goal is to be the first private company to unlock the vast hidden resources on the moon—everything from magnesium to platinum and helium-3—and develop a space colony there. These valuable minerals can be used to sustain the world’s booming population. For example, helium-3 is highly sought for nuclear fusion, and though the technology is still in its infancy, the element could serve to power the Earth.”

Technology has the power to change the world and beyond.

Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour has become a cause celebre among the progressive left. A number of cities, such as Seattle, San Francisco, and others, have already enacted these increases recently, to be phased in over several years. California has passed the first state-wide minimum wage hike to $15 an hour, with a number of other states, including New York and Massachusetts, considering following suit. Both Democratic presidential candidates are on record for supporting a federal hike to $15 an hour, though Hillary Clinton’s position has evolved from favoring $12 an hour to match that of Bernie Sanders.

The argument that an arbitrary increase of that magnitude is a job killer has thus far fallen on deaf ears. Proponents of the $15 minimum wage maintain that workers need a “living wage,” no matter what the market will bear.

The effects of the California statewide hike, even though it will not be entirely phased in for a few years, are already becoming apparent. The Los Angeles Times reported that the California apparel industry, which had been undergoing something of a revival, is starting to leave the state en masse. While many garment manufacturers will head south of the border, others will relocate to lower-wage states, such as New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas.

Another industry that is being affected by the drive to increase the minimum wage is fast food. McDonald’s, for example, is already rolling out automatic kiosks to order food and drinks. A company called Momentum Machineshas developed a machine that churns out made-to-order burgers with minimum human intervention. The raw ingredients go in one end, and the finished burgers go out the other at 400 an hour. The company intends to open its own restaurants and sell its technology to third-party vendors.

However, if you’re in an industry that is not as susceptible to automation or outsourcing, you may be forced to cut staff, raise prices, or even close down. The politicians who are so keen to force businesses to pay their workers a “living wage” are not aware of the narrow profit margins that most small businesses operate under. Many low-income, low-skill workers will sooner or later find that their wages will be zero dollars an hour.

That doesn’t mean that you don’t have options if politicians suddenly increase your labor costs by 50 to 100 percent.

When San Francisco increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour, Borderlands Books, a science fiction bookstore located in the Mission District, concluded that it would have to shut its doors. It could not operate with fewer staff than it was employing, and since the price of books is set by publishers, it could not hike prices.

Taking a suggestion from a customer, store owner Alan Beatts began to offer memberships for his store at $100 per year in exchange for a number of special perks. He calculated that if he could sell 100 memberships, he could stay open for a year. He shattered his goal by selling 449 memberships and was able to stay open.

Forbes offered some more generic ways to deal with a minimum wage increase. Two basic strategies exist.

“The first: reanalyze the components of your labor costs. Labor costs include not just wages and benefits but also the cost of hiring, training, firing when necessary, and day-to-day supervision. There are usually significant tradeoffs among these different elements, and companies in some industries can choose very different labor-cost strategies.”

For example, if a business is more generous with wages and benefits, it will retain employees longer, cutting down on turnover, hiring, and training costs.

“The second strategy: get your employees on board. Begin educating them on what those higher costs mean for the business. Engage them in figuring out how to boost sales, increase efficiency, and grow profits—and then share the improved profits with your employees.”

The trick is to listen and put into effect the best suggestions, perhaps providing a financial incentive for employees to devise cost-saving strategies.

Neither of these strategies is perfect or applicable in all situations. But they constitute a better alternative than closing your doors and should at least be tried.