Abstract
This issue of New Space journal has a nice combination of articles from three of the five general categories identified in my last editorial. Those categories were identified by grouping the different articles published over the years, but as mentioned in the previous editorial, it was never our intent to absolutely exclude certain topics from future publication. Here are the five general categories into which most articles will fit:
Critical Resources: Descriptions of activities or organizations developing an important resource for industry emergence, also known as an industry infrastructure element (IIE). These are critical activities that can be conducted by one firm or organization by itself, or cooperatively by many companies and organizations. The industry supported by the IIE development should be identified. These are not necessarily tied to a specific company, identified market, business plan, or operating model. New Space Activity: These are descriptions of activities or organizations (companies) that include a narrative market description. Case studies of individual organizations could be included in this category. Case studies of multiple organizations could be categorized as a general study. New Space Plan: These are descriptions of specific activities or organizations that include a quantitative business plan or operating model. Market Analysis: This article performs an analysis, following an established or original framework and methodology. The analysis can be based on organizational dimensions of goals, boundaries (defined as “distinctions between members and nonmembers, thus setting organizations off from their environments”
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), and activities (defined as “bounded and interdependent role behaviors-sets of routines and bundles of activities,”
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and routines are generically defined as “forms, rules, procedures, conventions, strategies, and technologies”
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(p.320)). General Studies: These are analyses attempting to define or evaluate existing terminology, laws, regulations, management techniques, etc. The scope of studies can be broad or generic (e.g., definition of “commercial”), studying advantages, issues, challenges, or impacts faced by a given industry segment, or almost any other space-related context. This category can include literature reviews, empirical studies, survey results, the development of typologies or taxonomies, and comparative or historical studies.
Having identified these categories, it is exciting to note that this issue contains seven peer-reviewed articles from the first three of these categories. The first three articles, “Progress in the formation of professionals with knowledge in aerospace technology in Peru: An overview,” “Developing a spacecraft air quality index for future missions,” and “A Framework for relating crewmember performance measures to spacecraft design and operations,” cover critical industry resources of human capital, technical standards, and human performance. General descriptions of new space activities are the topic of the next 3 articles, “Launching smallsats: The example of southern launch,” “A commercial extra-vehicular activity space suit,” and “Prospect commercial routes in the earth-moon system's service volume.” The last article, “Business model for a long duration manned lunar mission: refueling, resource commercialization and new revenue streams,” falls into the third category of specific business plans.
Finally, we precede these peer-reviewed articles with a last-minute entry, a perspective piece entitled “Resilience of new space firms in the UK during the early stages of Covid-19 crisis: The case for strategic agility,” authored by three scholars from the University of Edinburgh, Matjaz Vidmar, Alessandro Rosiello, and Owais Golra.
I hope you enjoy the eight informative articles in this issue, and I think you will be excited by what we have planned for New Space in 2021!