INNOBLOG

Today's WSJ has an article by Taylor Dinerman (registration required) on how two partner companies, US-based Space Adventures and Russian-based RSC Energia, are plan to provide $100 million sightseeing trips to the moon by 2009. The effort will leverage proven Russian rockets and space vehicles. The article contrasts this relatively low-cost, modular approach with the much more expensive, much more complicated NASA plans to return to the moon. Much like a different article describing how a small Pentagon office led an effort outside of normal acquisition channels to produce "good enough" satellites for military purposes (see my June 17 Innoblog post), the WSJ piece explicitly cites Clay Christensen and Disruptive Innovation theory. The Pentagon office used DI theory to guide its efforts, while Dinerman refers to DI to describe and explain this latest space tourism venture.

Challengers to the existing US government space program (including NASA, the military, and subsidies) are popping up everywhere, even inside the government. Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, the Pentagon's TacSat One, and the coming private moon trips may be part of an emerging wave of space ventures. These challengers all embrace--consciously or not--the principles of disruptive innovation. How should NASA respond?

It is probably too early to proclaim that NASA is doomed to be disrupted by innovators from below. The possibility no longer seems far-fetched, however. NASA would be well served to think through its mission and consider how it is going to cope with lower-cost challengers. These challengers provide limited, simple space services that NASA's leaders don't want to perform. If NASA wants to stay relevant, however, it would be unwise for the agency to only look to grander things while ceding these low-end space services to the private sector.

Disruptive Innovation theory tells us that space tourism is the kind of foothold market that challengers use to gain traction before moving up market to capture more and more of the available value. As space tourism companies march up market, they will perform more and more complicated tasks. Soon, the best rocket scientists may rather work for the Burt Rutans of the world, who may be doing the most interesting research and development, than for NASA, no matter the brilliance of that agency's past achievements.