The Conundrum of Commercial Space

Abstract

Commercialization is probably one of the most commonly heard words in the space industry. The topic is cause for one of the largest divisions in the industry, between the proposers of commerce, who often pose it as the only realistic approach, and the defenders of the traditional governmental approach, who see commerce as a utopian model that will never become a reality in space. Several commercialization attempts in the past failed to yield a fully commercial space sector (i.e. funded fully by private individuals). However, the various flaws of the various government space programs worldwide make a good case for the development of a commercially sustained space sector, especially for the development of large projects such as the MMB. Recent approaches to commercialization through private-public partnerships have shown promising results and could be imitated for the MMB. This chapter reviews past efforts towards commercialization and their main issues, and proposes how to solve them based on current experience with public-private partnerships.