Space Novelties

Sale of materials which come from or have been in space (for that fact rather than their intrinsic value) is currently a $2 million/year market (CSTS, section 3.10.2.6.1, page 371; this appears to be a rough number). CSTS (section 3.10.2.6.1, page 371) thinks it could be a $20 million/year market, but it isn't clear to me what assumptions are behind that.

Selling lunar materials

"First Souvenirs" by Peter Kokh, Moon Miners Manifesto, Feb 1989, as reprinted in "Market Surveys for Lunar Artifacts", Artemis Data Book, section 3.4, offers some ideas for marketing lunar materials. No economic analysis, though. "Possible Moon Rock Merchandising Methods" by Clark Lindsey, Artemis Data Book, section 3.4, has more ideas along with market issues (some discussion of price points for example).

Selling Lunar Rock Plaques to the Public, Artemis Data Book, section 3.4, offers an economic analysis of selling very thin slices of lunar rock. They would appear to be somewhat, but not outrageously, more optimistic than the CSTS regarding volume (they project selling 600,000 plaques but the CSTS, section 3.10.2.6.1, page 372, claims actual volume at a $200 price point would be more like 100,000 or somewhat less). As far as I know neither the Artemis nor the CSTS numbers are based on any kind of market research to speak of, and so both should be considered speculative.

One can imagine that the market for moon rocks might be somewhat similar to the existing market for meteorites from the moon or mars. For more on that market, see "Martian rocks priced per carat", Florida Today Space Online, 18 Aug 1996; note that the article's reference to "moon rock" almost surely means a meteorite of lunar origin rather than a rock brought from the moon by a spacecraft.

Applied Space Resources (to some extent historical, as sample return is now only one of their planned revenue streams):

Items not flown in space

In some sense this is not a space market, because it doesn't really require spaceflight (consider Star Trek for example), but the items mentioned here do have a tie-in to real spaceflight and thus at least in principle could fund it.

Here is a partial list of products. I don't have any numbers on revenues or profitability, however.

More companies/products:

This page is part of Jim Kingdon's space markets page.