Market architectures and institutional testbedding: An experiment with space station pricing policies

Abstract

By the year 2000 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to launch and operate an earth orbiting space station. For decades into the future the station is expected to play a dominant role in U.S. space research and in the commercialization of space. If the expectations are correct, then the station will be a complex of potentially valuable resources and services. Much sentiment exists within the government that the allocation of those resources should be based on some sort of market-oriented policy (a more “business-like” approach). This paper is part of a larger project that is intended to ascertain what that policy might be.