A Golden Age In the Stars

"Space to Grow

By Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau

Harvard Business Review, 320 pages, $32

On Oct. 10, 2012, an uncrewed SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying half a ton of cargo docked with the International Space Station (ISS). The mission marked the dawn of a new era in spaceflight and portended the twilight of the previous one.

For the five decades following the 1957 launch of Sputnik I, spaceflight had been almost entirely centralized under huge state enterprises such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or Russia's Roscosmos and its Soviet-era predecessors. While several private companies built rockets to launch communication satellites and other cargo, it was difficult for them to compete with publicly funded space agencies. The price of putting payload in orbit remained stubbornly high.

Following the Columbia space-shuttle disaster in 2003, NASA was forced to change tack. As Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau explain in "Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier," the agency needed to phase out the shuttle but had no backup vehicle. Traditionally, NASA hired aerospace contractors to build space vehicles that the agency itself owned and flew. Desperate for a leaner alternative to that cumbersome approach, the agency conceived a program to outsource ISS deliveries to private launch companies. That seemingly small innovation had a huge impact.

NASA proposed hiring commercially operated spacecraft much the way a rock band might charter a tour bus. The agency promised fixed-price contracts to private companies that could prove their ability to fly the agency's precious cargo -- and eventually astronauts -- on their own rockets. In 2006, NASA chose SpaceX, still an untested startup at the time, to be part of this commercial experiment. "America was betting on the private sector," the authors write.

The bet paid off. SpaceX quickly left all competitors in its fiery wake. By 2017 the company learned to land and reuse Falcon 9 rocket boosters instead of letting them fall uselessly into the sea. In 2020 SpaceX began ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS. The authors show how the company's rocketry innovations and slim management helped slash the cost of NASA's ISS flights by 90%.

But more than that, SpaceX showed spaceflight could be decentralized. A private startup such as SpaceX could serve NASA as a vendor but also launch payloads for other paying customers. Suddenly, space was a business opportunity. Other entrepreneurs took notice. Over the past two decades, the authors estimate, investors have poured roughly $60 billion into space startups. These ventures launch payloads, operate satellites, fly space tourists and provide various "space services" for a range of public and private clients. "A commercial revolution has taken hold" in space, the authors conclude.

Mr. Weinzierl, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Mr. Rosseau, a former teaching fellow at the school, explain the burgeoning space industry using classic B-school analytical tools. They include case studies of SpaceX, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin (which Mr. Rosseau recently joined as a strategy manager) and other pioneers in the modern space business. The authors particularly focus on how NASA's public-private partnerships catalyze other opportunities, creating a market in which "both public and private actors play to their strengths."

In one fascinating discussion, the authors explore how SpaceX used its participation in NASA's Commercial Crew program to accelerate its own technological progress. In contrast, Blue Origin dropped out of the program to focus on its own long-term goals. That choice may explain why Mr. Bezos's company took until this year to launch its first orbital rocket while SpaceX is already testing its next-generation Starship vehicle. (Today, Blue Origin is involved in several NASA commercial programs, including a contract to build a lunar landing craft.)

"Space to Grow" also turns its case-study lens on NASA itself. The authors describe why, after the spectacular success of the Apollo missions, the storied agency became bogged down in overpriced, underperforming projects such as the space shuttle, the ISS and the Space Launch System rocket, the huge, much-delayed rocket NASA is hoping will carry astronauts back to the moon. The agency's centralized, top-down structure is much to blame, they conclude.

NASA still builds too much space hardware using legacy contractors and generous "cost-plus" contracts. These cozy arrangements give firms "weak incentives to keep costs down and pursue efficiencies" because their returns are guaranteed, the authors note. Congress makes these problems worse as lawmakers defend wasteful programs that guarantee jobs in their districts. Given those political pressures, it is impressive that NASA leaders have kept the agency's commercial programs alive, much less shepherded them to success.

Thanks to NASA's commercial innovations -- and the related boom in private ventures -- space news moves fast today. These rapid changes sometimes leave "Space to Grow" feeling slightly behind events. For example, last summer the world watched as Boeing's Starliner spacecraft carried two astronauts to the ISS. But the vehicle suffered dangerous malfunctions en route, leaving the two astronauts stranded at the station. Starliner represents Boeing's attempt to compete with SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Crew program. Readers would have appreciated some analysis of why Boeing struggles to compete under NASA's new fixed-price regime.

Nonetheless, Messrs. Weinzierl and Rosseau have produced a useful and readable field guide to the new space economy. As with the digital revolution and other major technological shifts, we can't anticipate all the breakthroughs this new era will produce. But as launch costs come down and entrepreneurial talent floods in, the authors predict, "new and unexpected capabilities will emerge."

The new space age will also entail challenges we will need to manage. The authors discuss the growing problem of orbital space debris and debates about who has the right to exploit space resources, such as mineral-rich asteroids. But "Space to Grow" convincingly argues that the U.S. is uniquely well-positioned to solve these problems and to thrive in this new era of decentralized space ventures. It makes an excellent case for informed optimism about what the authors call the coming "golden age in space."

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Mr. Meigs is the former editor of Popular Mechanics and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute." [1]

1. A Golden Age In the Stars. Meigs, James B.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 27 May 2025: A15.