COSM Insights
Insights assembled from debates, discussions, and workshops with our members.
Unlimited Resources
“If you had unlimited resources, what would your mission be?”
We asked each of our IHS24 retreat participants this icebreaker question ahead of our discussions on how the space ecosystem can accelerate globally.
Framed by our three pillars: For Technology, For Industry, For Humanity; the answers varied, but revealed a common theme: These missions cannot succeed without clear value to the people of Earth and cross collaboration with terrestrial industries.
As Sam Jordan, our resident strategic foresight expert, put it: “The space industry needs compelling scenarios to attract other industries. Potential investors must understand how their investment in space will lead to efficiency improvements or new value creation.”
The space industry has traditionally communicated “by space, for space”. The focus should be “by space, for Earth”, and the inverse, “by Earth, for space”.
Earth Strategy
Space is an industry full of high capital expenditures, long-term investments, and a healthy amount of idealistic delusion. The last several years have seen an explosion of startups across the industry, many in market niches that don’t exist or struggle to close their business case today.
These niches need a major injection of:
💸 Funding
🤝 Customers
🧠 Talent
In December of 2022, Harvard Business School published the article “Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.” discussing how data, capabilities, resources, and markets from space promise to augment & optimize terrestrial business models - but what about the inverse?
Your {Space} Company Needs an Earth Strategy. Now.
Long term goals + Unknown Markets = Less accessible path to revenue + profit
This creates a greater need for terrestrially applied business models to bridge the Valleys of Death your business will encounter. Ultimately, space missions need to provide value back to humanity. For commercial business models to succeed, they need to connect some value and service back to the people of Earth, promoting space as a value-adder, like enabling dual use technology advancements.
Space Value Chain
For the complex supply chains of space industry business, understanding where your company fits into the value chain is paramount. It's not just about knowing your product or service; it's about grasping how money flows through the entire ecosystem.
This understanding is key to ensuring that your business model isn't just creating value, but also capturing it effectively. When you know how value is generated from upstream suppliers, amplified by your business, and distributed to downstream applications, you can pinpoint where the greatest opportunities lie.
Just as the space industry needs to bridge the gap between missions and tangible benefits for humanity, every business must connect its offerings back to the value they bring to customers and stakeholders.
Space Crystal Ball
Who’s got the space crystal ball? Consulting firms often release industry predictions touting huge investment opportunities in space tech. They typically look like this:
❌% CAGR + New Business = ❌❌ trillion dollars by 20❌❌
Companies then claim, “If firm ❌ said it, our business value will skyrocket ❌,000% by 2040!” Sounds like the investment opportunity of a lifetime!
But how accurate are these predictions? What are they getting right? Where do we need to course-correct?
What if we shifted our focus? Instead of chasing arbitrary point valuations, what if we work backward mapping the ranges of possible futures while studying enabling technology and economics? We at the COSM are exploring just this, evaluating perceived and possible trends to better prepare the space industry for all possible futures.
Disconnected Frontiers
Forthcoming Industry Report.