Prime Movers Lab Webinar Recap: Emerging Markets in the Space Economy
Highlights from our conversation with four experts in transitioning from government-owned “Space for Earth” structures to privately owned & operated space stations for in-space R&D, manufacturing, tourism, and more! Recording linked here.
About a month ago, Christie Iacomini and I moderated a lively discussion on emerging markets in the New Space Economy. A huge thank you to our amazing panelists and to our audience for their engaging questions!
Highlights:
Theme #1: In-space R&D is driven by the biotech sector leveraging microgravity
Entrepreneurs turn challenges into opportunities. That’s the lens through which to view the space environment: microgravity, hard vacuum, and cosmic radiation can be resources rather than hazards. For example, the anchor client of the Starlab commercial space station (a joint collaboration of Lockheed Martin, Nanoracks, and Voyager Space Holdings) will be studying favorable crop mutations driven by cosmic rays. (Using machinery to do this on Earth is even more expensive, per this Economist article from January 2022.)
ISS National Lab’s Commerical Innovation Manager Noor Ward shared one of the most promising companies to come out of research done at ISS National Laboratory– LambdaVision. They have developed a thin layer deposition approach, which is only possible in a microgravity environment, to build up the cells for a protein-based artificial retina. These retinas are life-changing for people suffering blindness from retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. (Author’s note: with the help of an eye-doctor friend (thanks Nic!) I did a bottom-up estimate of the market size for age-related macular degeneration: it’s between $168B-220B. Space-borne technologies are even more exciting when they are selling into a tremendous terrestrial market!) Noor also mentioned promising research in tissue engineering and disease modeling.
Axiom Space Business Development Lead Anjali Gupta shared some of the exciting research going on at Axiom. Regenerative medicine and 3-D bioprinting are easier in an environment without a gravity vector: the recent AX-1 mission grew tumor organoids to test cancer drugs. Anjali also mentioned the technological inflection point she sees approaching in synthetic biology, thanks to the platform development and manufacturing process development for on-orbit research.
Theme #2: Modularity and autonomy to unlock the “Beyond Earth” economy
Chief Technologist of Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Lisa May brought up “Space for Space” business transactions and in-situ resource utilization (e.g. mining lunar regolith for propellant) as economic inflection points. The technology enabling those “Space for Space” interactions includes modular designs such as Lockheed Martin’s recently released open-source standard for on-orbit docking and OrbitFab’s RAFTI refueling port.
Noor followed up by reminding our audience that removing human factors will also speed up that “Space for Space” economic growth. (Autonomy will remove humans as an error source!) Lisa seconded Noor’s comments and cited the example of the lunar rover Lockheed Martin is developing in collaboration with General Motors that will have level 5 autonomy. Autonomy becomes even more critical for in-space manufacturing and assembly. Varda Space Industries is focused on autonomous production for in-space manufacturing of goods for Earth, while Think Orbital is working on technology to autonomously assemble large in-space structures.
Theme #3: Space investments should be held to the same standards as other verticals
Harvard Business School Space Economist Sinead O’Sullivan is tough on space. One of the biggest questions for the broader space economy is just how elastic the demand curve truly is — in other words, have the order of magnitude reduction in launch costs truly enabled a robust New Space ecosystem. Sinead states, when looking at the data for satellite launches over the last few years, after removing the induced demand from the launch companies themselves (eg SpaceX with Starlink), we haven’t yet seen the huge growth in small satellites that many are citing. It takes time for an industry to catch up; it can take up to a decade or more to create that demand to meet the new lower price. Sinead believes we are getting to that inflection point now, but that investors should hold space companies to the same standards as companies in other verticals! (Performance of new space companies that have gone public within the last year agrees with Sinead’s tempered guidance. SpaceWorks has created a New Space Index for those curious to track public market performance.)
Final Thoughts — disruptive scenario
Not discussed on the webinar, but included here for readers, is a framework for a more disruptive future in orbit. There are currently plans for four commercial space stations focused on a “business park” model to come online by 2030 (Axiom Space in 2024, Starlab in 2027, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada collaboration on Orbital Reef by 2030, and Northrup Grumman’s to-be-named station by 2030). Yet we all agree that keeping humans around to conduct research is expensive and autonomy is a key to unlocking the next level of the space economy. This author believes in a more disruptive scenario, where companies like The Exploration Company create a platform for fully autonomous R&D missions. Startups like Space Tango are working on R&D hardware platforms while startups like Titan Space are working on software that leverages advances in generalizable machine learning (by applying the OpenAI project’s GPT-3 algorithms) to increase experimental efficiency and the number of experiment cycles. And if one needs a human-in-the-loop for on-orbit experiments, there will be a Starship available for rent at far cheaper prices for the mission, rather than utilizing a space station. (Author’s note: I’m declaring this another example of how Starship is still misunderstood. Please see this fantastic piece by Casey Handmer for more disruptive scenarios unlocked by Starship.) The commercial space station with the most robust business model will be the one to not only survive but thrive in this more disruptive scenario for the space economy.
Another huge heartfelt thank you to our panelists, whose bios are linked below.
Panelists:
Noor Ward is the Commercial Innovation Manager at ISS National Lab. Her job focuses on commercialization of promising research developed on the International Space Station. Previously, Noor was a Senior Consultant at Excelsior Space, where her research areas included LEO Infrastructure and the New Space Economy. Noor is also versed in space policy, from her time at the Satellite Industry Association.
Anjali Gupta works on creating new markets in her Business Development role for Axiom Space, the world’s first private space station. Prior to joining Axiom, Anjali spent time as a biomedical research scientist, working for Aurora Biosciences, Pfizer, and UC San Diego Health.
Lisa May is the Chief Technologist of Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin, where she leads technology strategy development in support of all market segments and is the principal advisor on Commercial Civil Space technology strategy, investments and partnerships. Another notable chapter for Lisa took place at NASA, where she was responsible for planning future Mars missions to further NASA’s planetary science objectives.
Sinead O’Sullivan is a Space Economist for the Institute for Strategy & Competitiveness at Harvard Business School. Additionally, Sinead is an Adjunct Professor of Aerospace Design at Illinois Institute of Technology. Good news for everyone interested in the space economy that doesn’t want to go back to college– Sinead also teaches the ScholarSite class “The Business & Economics of Space”!
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation and agriculture.
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