67 th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Guadalajara, Mexico, 26-30 September 2016. Copyright ©2016 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved. IAC-16-F1.2.3 Page 1 of 30 IAC-16-33041 BUILDING BLOCKS OF A ROBUST ECONOMY IN EARTH’S ORBIT: THE MACHINERY OF COMMERCIALIZATION Ioana Cozmuta, Ph. D. a* a Science and Technology Corporation, NASA Research Park, Bldg. 19, Moffett Field, CA 94035 Ioana.cozmuta@icloud.com * Corresponding Author Abstract Economy is a term referring to the set of interrelated production and consumption activities relying on a careful management of available resources. The space resources upon which a robust economy in Earth's orbit can be created are: extremes in temperature, ultra-high vacuum, perpetually available solar power, reduced gravity, data, and remote sensing. Three pillars: technical, economic and policy, with their corresponding responsibilities and ethics will be discussed. Several concepts - from allowing incorporation in Earth's orbit (.leo) to creating a currency from mining solar powered data centers as well as encouraging future growth through standardization and smart use of "touch of space" branding will be proposed. Discussion will also focus on the types of approaches (new insights, processing and reprocessing in space, manufacturing and assembly) that could be used to return the value of space to Earth for economic growth and public benefit. Lessons learned from past commercialization efforts will be reviewed. Traditionally results have been categorized based on fundamental scientific or engineering disciplines; an approach that is effective at highlighting research in a given field. However, it often results in discipline level stove-piping which is counterproductive to commercialization. To overcome this limitation, the concept of Microgravity Verticals is introduced where existing microgravity results have been binned across multiple disciplines based on their relevance to a sector of terrestrial private industry. The Microgravity Verticals are developed to capture in a compressed manner a mix of very diverse values (knowledge, processing) of the microgravity environment through companies who have self identified their interest or intent to mature those technologies for commercial applications and extend the Verticals into the future via microgravity-based solutions relevant to a sector of the private industry aligned with current industry specific roadmaps. A new approach, the Economic Readiness Level (ERL) is proposed that relates technology and investment considerations to supply, demand and capital. To advance on the Economic Readiness Level scale, the technology itself may not necessarily need to mature but the understanding of its economic potential does. Building on these new concepts of Microgravity Verticals and the Economic Readiness Level, this paper further captures and describes key aspects and elements of the machinery of commercialization to create pathways for infusion of private capital that could harvest the resources of space through a robust economy in Earth’s orbit and beyond and return value to Earth. Keywords: commercialization, robust economy in Earth’s orbits, orbital currency, Acronyms/Abbreviations Reusable Suborbital Launch vehicle RSLV International Space Station ISS Technology Readiness Level TRL Economic Readiness Level ERL Low Earth Orbit LEO Minimum Viable Product MVP Return on Investment ROI National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA Wake Shield Facility WSF 1. Introduction Thriving sustainably on and beyond planet Earth is an imperative that we must deliver to future generations Emerging markets behave very much like open systems in nature, where the right amount of free energy needs to be available for the system to thrive: too much control (or cohesive energy) and the system will have no flexibility to explore new opportunities; too much entropy and disorder will break it apart. Similarly, a commercial microgravity program supporting the development of emerging markets towards building a sustainable LEO-Earth economy must cohere around a well-coordinated transportation and communication infrastructure (affordable, reliable, frequent) to create