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Last week, the school launched its first course devoted to outer space, “Space: Public and Commercial Economics,” led by Elbling professor of business administration Matthew C. Weinzierl. To his knowledge, it is the first course on the economics of the space sector to be taught at an elite educational institution. He hopes the 14-session course will “inspire other places to have their own offerings on space and make this something that is talked about at business schools more broadly.”

Space has become a $400 billion per year business; where does all that money even come from? If space exploration has to privatize in order to stay alive, what will the market demand for this technology look like? And as private sector innovation makes the Final Frontier look more and more like Earth’s suburban backyard, could we be overthinking the economic difficulties of space exploration? Matt Weinzierl joins me today to answer these questions.

"The business case closes in space for only a few applications right now, mostly for television and telecommunications," Matt Weinzierl, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies the economics of space, told CBS MoneyWatch. "But the harsh reality is that the costs of transportation to and from space -- much less operation in space -- make data a uniquely feasible space product."

Private rocket companies are competing to be the first to send paying tourists into space, perhaps even this year. Matthew Weinzierl lays out the strategic roadmap to the stars.
 

As part of an HBS Digital Initiative feature on the business and economics of space, Professor Matt Weinzierl applies a well-known idea from game theory to identity a key role for market-based substitutes in spurring innovation in the sector. 

The 2017 Working Group was designed to spur scholarship on commercial space and create a focal point for research-driven discussions of commercial space and policy toward it. It also seeks to open the space sector to a broader range of younga talent, including business school students.To those ends, it brings together a small group of leading thinkers on space to engage intellectually with developments in the sector and inspire new and high-impact research.