Are you going into space?

The $1tn industry you shouldn’t ignore

So here’s a Sunday evening curveball for you. Have you ever thought of working in space?

Not as an astronaut, but leading your industry there to create new products or services.

The pharmaceutical industry is already developing drugs in space to take advantage of the microgravity and vacuumless conditions. Semiconductors are in development too.

Varda Space Industries, a California-based pharma company, is testing the crystallization of Ritonavir, an HIV medicine. The UK’s SpaceForge sells microgravity-as-a-service and enables companies to take advantage of different gravity, atmospheric and extreme temperature controls.

Thanks to Elon Musk and SpaceX’s attempts to put more than 40,000 satellite into space for broadband services, the cost of launches to low-Earth orbit (LEO) has fallen significantly.

“When the space shuttle was in operation, it could launch a payload of 27,500 kilograms for $1.5 billion, or $54,500 per kilogram,” writes Wendy Whitman Cobb, Associate Professor of Political Science, Cameron University. “For a SpaceX Falcon 9, the rocket used to access the ISS, the cost is just $2,720 per kilogram.”

The space market in 2022 was worth around $450 billion and could be at $1 trillion by 2030 as market barriers lower, analysts predict. There are more than 90 countries operating in space but only a handful currently able to send up satellites.

Ok, you ask – so what? How does this relate to me and what I am doing as a CEO?

The interesting point about companies entering space is many of them are in established industries.

Weather. Carbon. Mining. Insurance. Legal. Health. Energy. Transport. Manufacturing. Environmental. Finance. Materials exploration. Security. Connectivity. Etc.

Global satellite data services alone are set to be worth $44bn by 2030. And that’s because it’s the intersection of existing industries where the opportunity of space technology is interesting. It brings new perspective, data and different approaches to problem solving you may not have considered.

Just take professional services. Who are the space-industry consultants? How do you underwrite space equipment? Or write an employment contract for an astronaut? How do you secure a space project?

If your clients are testing the space industry, you need to be moving with them.

I told you it was a curveball, but one that my nine-year-old self is rather excited by. So are some questions for you and your leadership team this week:

• To what extent have we considered what we could do in space?
• Who would we partner with for a useful space project?
• What are our clients doing or what could they do in space?
• What are the risks in space for us?
• Could we beat our industry to the punch on a credible space story?

Have a great week.

Dan