Manufacturing Commercial Space

Given my role and interest in the space industry, I try to follow its developments somewhat assiduously.  Every day there are new headlines about commercial space, businesses that are proposing this or that technology or capability, drawing in investor funds, and pushing the industry forward, such that few people in the industry seem to question any more that this second space age in which we are said to be in is the age of commercial space.  Maybe it is, but of all those headlines in recent times, only two suggest to me that this second space age is truly a commercial one: Varda Space Industries’ return of a crystalline drug manufactured on orbit, and Flawless Photonics’ technology maturation demonstration of optical fiber manufacturing on the International Space Station.

Companies pursuing such techniques are genuinely commercial space, but they represent a tiny fraction of what is being described as the commercial space industry.  See, there is a certain disingenuousness about how we deploy that “commercial” term, and it is causing us to overstate the value of these companies, the role that they play, while understating the continued involvement of the government.  In a sentence, the government is still the primary driver of most space activity, and much of what is called commercial space is simply a step removed from direct government involvement.  For as impressive as Intuitive Machines’ semi-successful lunar landing was, it can’t truly be called commercial space if it was primarily the product of a government contract.  So long as government contracts remain the primary revenue source for companies operating in the space industry, commercial space is just a shell, an alternative method for government space.

That is not to say that there is no commercial space.  Commercial satellite communication providers and satellite imagery providers are now leveraged by a wide variety of industries and customers.  It may even be possible that SpaceX’s launch business could sustain itself without relying upon government demand for launch, although I suspect it would be a near thing, and since they remain a private company, their finances are likely to opaque to do that assessment.  Like our discussion of the space debris problem, though, space companies need to be looking for what they can provide to a customer base beyond the government, not only relying upon government contracts for their existence.  These companies continue to draw millions of investor dollars in anticipation, not of traditional profitability measures, but of continued government support.

Space is, as the saying goes, hard.  Making a space company is even harder, and getting it to profitability is a long, long road.  I’ve sometimes thought about starting my own space business, but the sheer capital requirements even to begin are intimidating (maybe someday), and the times to return on investment are long and uncertain.  Not to mention the evolving regulatory environment that seems intent at times on crimping the space industry before it has a chance to flourish (but that’s another post).  Companies offering payload capacity to the Moon, or in-space servicing, may never draw customers outside of the government, academia, and a few advertisers.  There is a place for them, and I am encouraged by the new technology that the industry is pursuing, but it is not truly commercial space.

Which returns us to the stories we mentioned at the beginning of this post.  If satellite imagery and communications have shown that there is a practical, profitable business to be made in space, in-space manufacturing may well be the next frontier.  It delivers a product, not to the government, or to other space users, or to researchers, but to non-space industries.  It leverages the unique properties of the space environment to do something that cannot be done anywhere else, offering something unique, with advantages over terrestrial competitors.  If companies like Varda and Flawless Photonics can manufacture products at-scale and return them to Earth while keeping the cost of those products from becoming prohibitive, they will be the next stage of truly commercial space.

From there, it will be only a step further to use materials already in space to manufacture things, whether those be asteroids, something from the solar wind, or the remnants of old satellites (I would love to see (or start) a company that can convert space debris into new products, although the legal hurdles are significant, never mind the technical ones).  That is how space will become more accessible, how costs will continue to decline, and how we will continue to innovate and advance.  That is the commercial space that I want to see.  True commercial space, for now, remains a small sliver of what is being called the commercial space industry, but as more services and products can be delivered from space, that sliver will grow.  It may be a long time before all of us can benefit from superior, space-made fiberoptic cables, but that is where the future of commercial space lies.