The Laughing Wolf

Commercial Space: Changing The Approach

On Rocket Forge, Michael Mealing has an outstanding article that picks up on my two most recent space business posts and takes the idea behind them to the next level. In it, he outlines four steps that need to be taken by those serious in space commercialization. “True Believers” will scream a bit, but that is the subject of tomorrow’s post. The rest of us will take this as a great starting point, and move even further.

The fact is that space enthusiasts, and I count myself as one, tend to get caught up in the goal, the technology. It is the means of getting there, the specific projects that catch our eye and become the focus. The problem is, that focus is shared by no one else. No one else truly cares about the neat things we can do with a specific technology. Let’s face it: the really neat technology that can only come into play once we are in space is only of interest to a very small group. That is the problem.

Instead, it needs to be looked at from two distinct, but closely related, viewpoints. First, the customer. Second, the investor.

The customer should be the driver. What does the customer want? What can you sell the customer that they don’t yet know that they want or need? Michael makes some very good cases for this, and of finding incremental products to sell.

The latter ties into the second viewpoint that is crucial: the investor. The investor is looking for anything that helps guarantees a return on investment, and for ways to greatly increase that return. That means finding as many markets for each product and waste product as possible.

Yep, I said waste product. What is one person’s trash is another’s treasure and that will hold true in space as well. For years, people have tried to get NASA to leave the external tanks in orbit so they can be used. They not only have processed metals and chambers, but several tons of unused liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen on board. It actually costs NASA energy and money to dump them into the ocean, but for reasons (or lack thereof) known only to them, NASA has bitterly resisted doing so. A waste product, and a possible sale to another customer.

What is clearly needed in most of the commercial space community, particularly in the space enthusiasts community, is a change of outlook, a change of approach. The focus needs to be less on the technology or really neat thing, and on how that technology or thing can make money.

More on that later, maybe even tomorrow.

-30-