Next-gen space awaits its 'Netscape moment'

By Leonard David

updated 9:12 p.m. ET Nov. 26, 2007

GOLDEN, Colo. - From a new array of space-enabled technologies to the emerging commercial market for passenger space travel, the commercialization of next-generation space enterprises appears to be well under way. But industry insiders admit that challenges exist — including ensuring that entrepreneurial firms gain proper financial footing and overcome the legal, regulatory and insurance obstacles that could undermine its profit potential.

Steady progress was made this year on several fronts in the entrepreneurial space sector. In 2008, that growth is expected to include even more advanced technology development, according to industry officials. Nevertheless, members of the entrepreneurial space industry say more work is needed to assure that innovative space products and services are able to secure a profit-making niche in today's economy.

Dull but growing roar
"I think we're seeing a rising tide of activities that are enabled by space," said Burke Fort, executive director of the Eighth Continent Project, based here at the Colorado School of Mines. The project is an effort to help create new space-oriented startup companies.

For instance, Fort said, location technology, space-based imaging, melded with small but highly integrated hand-held devices can have a big impact on a variety of markets.

"There's an emerging commercial space economy that's providing content — thanks to space," Fort told Space News in a Nov. 19 interview. "I think what we're going to see is a kind of dull but growing roar," labeling it a new era — "Space 2.0" — of commercial development.

Fort said that with this emergent commercial space sector there should be an increase in the number of aerospace-savvy support professionals, be they Intellectual Property lawyers, risk managers or management consultants. This expertise can help support the small but growing number of entrepreneurial firms that are starting to pop up, he said.

Fueling an economic engine
"We need some wins," said Peter Diamandis, chairman and chief executive officer of the X Prize Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif.

Those wins next year, he said, might constitute a successful flight of the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Falcon 1 booster; possible rollout of Virgin Galactic spaceliner hardware; demonstration flights of the Rocket Racing League's X-Racer; first flight to orbital altitude of Armadillo Aerospace gear; and a couple-dozen fully registered teams competing for the Google Lunar X Prize — a robotic race to the Moon for a $30 million purse.

A goal is to try and educate the financial communities — and the risk-taking community — to fuel an economic engine that yields true breakthroughs, Diamandis told Space News Nov. 11 during Space Vision 2007, an event held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and sponsored by the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

"The first time when these companies go public and return 20 times or 50 times the amount of money that was invested ... that's a key moment in time," Diamandis added. "You had Spacehab and Orbital Sciences go public as pseudo-commercial space companies. But they've been a flat stock price for 20 years. We really need someone to have a Netscape event," he said, pointing to the Initial Public Offering response in the mid-1990's of investment dollars into that Web browser.

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