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Short abstract:

This presentation contributes new insights to previous work in the social studies of outer space on spaceports by addressing the sociotechnical expectations of creating space launch economies and how these expectations are implicated in assetizing access to outer space.

Long abstract:

The space sector is seen as a significant area for future economic growth and national competitiveness, with recent investment made in creating new commercial spaceports to serve the small satellite and space tourism markets. In this presentation, we analyze the role of the UK state as a promissory and entrepreneurial actor (Mazzucato 2018), investing in, regulating and organizing the ‘promissory space’ of the space launch economy (Pollock and Williams 2010). In these roles, the UK state, with its industry partners, is actively constructing a new industrial sector in the UK, which promises both tangible and intangible assets. This presentation contributes new insights to previous work in the social studies of outer space on spaceports by addressing the sociotechnical expectations of creating space launch economies and how these expectations are implicated in assetizing access to outer space. We identify similar dynamics at work to other domains of technoscientific capitalism, namely the importance of asset creation, the role of regulation in asset-making and valuation, and the relationship between cultural and economic asset-forms. In doing so, our findings are relevant to STS scholars engaged in the analysis of sociotechnical expectations and assetization in other technoeconomic domains as well as the space sector.