Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

amount of R&D activity which can be performed, and the economics of working on orbit.
Much of the growth which had been projected for the late 1990s will still occur, but not
until after the turn of the century.
The second factor has been a stronger methodological approach. As any statistician
will note, it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict markets in the year 2000 for products
and services which do not currently exist. Without an historical database, trend analysis is
meaningless, and concepts such as focus groups are of limited value when talking of
entirely new concepts that may not be on the market for a decade.
As a result, projection of commercial space markets must rely more upon developing
a cohesive set of common sense assumptions about the basic economics of supply and
demand. Earlier projections have been predicated on assumptions which tend to focus on
the “supply side” of the market equation. hat is, many have made the assumption that
once a product or service becomes possible, it will become profitable. This is a “technology
push” approach to market projection which has often led to error.
[11] In addition to the supply side, the current analysis also addresses the issue of
demand. It looks not only at what can be produced in space, but what advantage the space
product has to the buyer as compared with other alternatives. In addition to looking at the
relative advantages of space products, we have examined analogous situations (the introduction
of technologically sophisticated, relatively high cost products into new markets)
to determine what has happened in the past, and often have used these as models.
It should be noted that these projections are only as valid as their underlying assumptions.
CSP has endeavored to use conservative assumptions in defining its scenarios, and
has sought corroboration of these assumptions through lengthy interviews of experts in
the aerospace industry. In short, CSP has used what might be termed a “modified-Delphi”
approach. 1
Actual revenues might be substantially lower than expected, due to an unforeseeable
and fundamental change. For example, if new medical evidence proved that men cannot
work in space without serious health drawbacks, the scope of feasible endeavors would be
severely circumscribed. On the other hand, it should be noted that the revenue projections
could be substantially lower than reality. Many of the activities contemplated in this
study involve new materials that would be used in “high-end” applications. Thus, the situation
might be analogous to projecting the future for the manufacture of silicon crystals
in the early 1950s (i.e. [12] before the development of the transistor and the takeoff of
the computer industry). Revolutionary products may create a substantial demand for
space products that are not included in this study. Therefore, as with all long term projections,
this study should be used as an indicator of potential, and not a prognosticator
of fact.
C. GENERAL APPROACH
EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN 479
This report focuses on the year 2000, and projects the commercial revenues for six
space industries: satellite communications, materials processing in space (MPS), remote
sensing, on-orbit services, space transportation, and ground--based support. Revenues are
for U.S. industry only, and are stated in 1985 dollars. The projections do not take into
account revenues accruing to the private sector through the R&D expenditures of the government
(e.g. the NASA space station program is not included). However, government pur-
1. The Delphi method uses a group of experts in a field, who then develop their individual scenarios
of the future. The experts then critique each other in order to develop a set of agreed-upon assumptions that
serve as the basis for analysis of future trends. Historically, this method has proven to be the best means of predicting
the change in situations where there are numerous variables and where data are scarce.