3. Balance
When considering opportunities
• Three basic options:
1. Do nothing
2. Do something
3. Do everything
• Specific to business markets
1. Outsource everything
2. Outsource something
3. Outsource nothing
4. Commercial Space-Joyrides
Virgin Galactic (airline) and Scaled Composites
(aircraft): innovators & current market share
holders - SUBORBITAL
– 34,000 have registered for flights
– $190,000 a ticket per flight for a total of $950,000 in
per-flight revenue (estimated in 2004)
– Initial ticket price of $200,000 (estimated in 2007)
– 50,000 customers to space in the first ten years of
operation (estimated in December 2005)
– The Virgin group consists of more than 200
companies around the world with expected annual
revenues of $10.7 billion in fiscal year 2005/6
– Other market entrants to include Rocketplane
(currently taking reservations at $250,000)
5. Commercial Space-Payloads
UP Aerospace at New Mexico’s spaceport
provides payload launches:
– All launch packages include: Professional
payload and launch support, Government and
Spaceport approvals, and conscientious
technical advice and assistance throughout
the entire project
– The flight in March was sold out. Commercial
and educational sectors represented 11
customer payloads flown onboard the
suborbital rocket
6. The NEXT Market
Orbital flights
– NASA’s new effort to purchase Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services—called COTS
– COTS funds available spread out over several years
is some $500 million
– NASA received over 90 proposals
7. Aircraft
• Suborbital:
– Human payload like Spaceship Two or
Rocketplane
– Nonhuman payload like UP Aerospace
• Orbital:
– Human payload like envisioned by NASA
COTS
– Nonhuman payload like envisioned by NASA
COTS
8. Spaceports
• New Mexico, United States of America
• Oklahoma Spaceport (Rocketplane)
• Ras Al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
• Spaceport Singapore
• Spaceport Sweden, Kiruna
• Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
• Woomera Range, Australia
• More in development…to include Dutch
colonies;-)
10. Summary
• Current markets are suborbital for human and
nonhuman payloads
– Immediate entrance with few competitors
– Relative low cost of market entrance
– Spaceship Two quote from Burt Rutan:
“I’m getting a commercial system going
for one reason: I don’t think anybody else will”.
“I think it’s really important for me to build a lot
of them,” he added, not just a few for Sir
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, “but a lot of
them.”
11. Advice for Developing a civilian space
enterprise: Follow the leaders
• Hire the right front office team
• Choose your sales force carefully
• Know your potential customers
• Create a unique product
• Design great marketing materials
• Pay attention to the legal paperwork
• Plan for the worst case
• Make customer service a priority
• Pick your agents and partners carefully
• Don’t make promises you aren’t sure you can keep
• State it over and over again that everything is going to be inherently
risky
Quoted from Derek Webber, Director of Spaceport Associates in
Rockville, Maryland
