How commercial is propellant transfer?
One primary selling point for using propellant transfer for exploration is that it might support substantial growth of the commercial space industry by providing a large market for a product that is a standardized commodity and, therefore, easy to compete. If that were true, this would, indeed, be a desirable outcome. However, this particular “commercial” market doesn’t look like other successful commercial space industries. A healthy commercial industry, like launch services (at least in the 1990s), satellite manufacturing, or satellite communications services, has multiple competing suppliers who take the risk to create products mostly using their own investment in order to sell to multiple customers, many of whom are, themselves, commercial entities. A government agency may support development of the technology and might be one significant customer, but in a truly commercial market the government does not provide all the funding or buy the majority of the product.
