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If things don’t work out for Europe’s spacetech companies, maybe they can become lifestyle brands?
Isar Aerospace, Exotrail, Space Forge, Orbex, Skyrora and PLD Space are just some of the big space names that have gravitated towards the merchandise game.
Cardiff-based Space Forge, which aims to create “mini-factories” to develop new materials and components in space, sells hoodies, t-shirts and tote bags. The company’s merch store was “accidentally born as demand [grew] from the wider space-obsessed community,” Space Forge says. Some of its products sell out quickly — the £10 babygrows, for example, are gone.
Meanwhile, Germany’s Isar Aerospace, which is building rockets, sells socks, beanies and t-shirts. Its baby onesies — which go for €20 — are still in stock. Stuck for a nice gift for your mate? For €125, you can buy a postcard from space — one of several items being sold by The Exploration Company, another Munich company that’s also developing rockets.
This tide of space merch tells us that the industry is loosening up, says Thomas Sinn, founder and CEO of Munich-based Dcubed, which makes components for satellites. Dcubed has also invented the “space selfie stick”, so companies can take snaps of their satellites in-orbit.
“These kinda things were unthinkable in the classic space days, where there was a mindset that because it’s space technology, it should be highly secret. ‘New space’ is totally different — you can be much more open,” says Sinn.
The Dcubed founder was born in a German village that’s beside the site where they test the propulsion systems for Europe’s Ariane rockets. “You would see the smoke rising out of the forest and feel the windows shake — so it always had to be a career in space for me.” He credits SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk with helping the industry to take itself less seriously. “When his rockets exploded, he'd say, ‘well, at least the pieces were bigger this time’,” says Sinn.
Europe’s space companies are doing it differently now, too. Italy’s D-Orbit, which plans to open its own merch store, gives fun names to its rocket missions — past launches include “Second Star to the Right” and “Spacelust”.
No spacetech company would tell me how profitable its merch lines are. But even if sales don’t add a lot to the balance sheet, they help push a brand into the public imagination. “I see so many people wearing Nasa shirts around Munich,” says Sinn, who’s also had Dcubed t-shirts made (Munich, incidentally, has a growing claim to being Europe's space capital; it’s a place where techies like Sinn hold regular "Space Brewery" sessions — essentially space chat and beers).
Should more startups open merch stores? Probably not. A speedy delivery company, say, might have a hard time selling stuff that gets us excited about takeaways (beyond eating them).
But a t-shirt with a picture of a rocket on it? Sure, why not. Most people are awed by space: it won't hurt companies to try to cash in on it.
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