Commercial Space, Private Space, Something Else? Analyzing the Historiography of Twenty-First-Century U.S. Spaceflight

This chapter offers a historiographical investigation of the rise of the so-called commercial space era, seeking to define the differences between old space/new space and what they might mean. It will then focus on the historiography of this subject, the commercial space arena, and the manner in which the groundwork for what has come to pass dating back to the communications satellite debates of the 1960s, the efforts to stimulate commercial activities in the latter 25 years of the twentieth century, and the plethora of space launch endeavors that emerged near the turn of the new millennium. I have divided the chapter into four major parts. The first asks the question, what is commercial space? Unfortunately, there is no one answer that satisfies all investigators. Second, a section on communications satellite history investigates the historiography of what is the earliest and most long-lasting of all commercial space activities. The third section comments on the historiography of space access, the most contentious and significant of the commercial space sectors. Finally, a conclusion will approach some of the key issues that may motivate serious historical investigation in the future. At sum, this chapter is fundamentally a debate over approaches to space activities, and looking back at this point—after the success of programs such as the SpaceX Dragon capsule/Falcon 9 and Cygnus capsule/Antares launch systems—it is appropriate to consider the manner in which these long trends have been interpreted. The flowering of historical and journalistic accounts of what has been taking place in the first score of years since the dawn of the twenty-first century represents an important turn in the history of space exploration. The historiographical chapter that follows will assess the state of historical scholarship on U.S. human spaceflight since the beginning of the new century. As yet, too much of the historically focused work on this subject has been more advocacy than analysis. The chapter will close with some suggestions for furthering this exploration in commercial space history.