Old Space, New Space: A Commercial Revolution in Innovation? | NBER

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Working Paper 35212 DOI 10.3386/w35212 Issue Date May 2026 The emergence of firms like SpaceX and Blue Origin has made space a leading example of how private enterprise drives innovation, marking what many see as a sharp break between Old Space and New Space. Yet little systematic evidence documents when the transition to this new phase of space innovation occurred and which firms drove it. We use patent data to provide this measurement and find that the largest surge in space innovation occurred in the 1990s, coinciding with demand-side market creation, and preceding the entry of…

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