Space Commerce Course Prepares Smith Students for the Next Business Frontier

Following its record-breaking flyby around the moon, Artemis II’s safe splashdown on April 11, 2026, captivated audiences worldwide and marked the end of humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century.

For students enrolled in BMGT478K: The Industry Analysis of Space Commerce at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business this semester, the mission’s dramatic conclusion served as an apt backdrop for course material. It also represented a valuable inflection point in how business education can translate beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

“The timing has been amazing. It felt much more real than theoretical to be in this course during the Artemis II mission,” says Bryan Baires ’27, an information systems and supply chain management major. “I gained a better understanding of the mission's broader relevance beyond the launch, particularly regarding supply chains, international cooperation and the long-term prospects of space commercialization, thanks to the course.”

As Smith’s first undergraduate space commerce course, BMGT478K is one small step before the giant leap, furthering its Space at Smith initiative, launched by the logistics, business and public policy (LBPP) department and Area Chair Cristian Dezső in fall 2025. The initiative is dedicated to developing undergraduate and graduate programs focused on the rapidly growing commercial space industry.

Taught by Jon Crocker, MBA ’16, Assistant Dean for Executive Education and an LBPP clinical professor, and offered to students for the first time during the spring 2026 semester, the course is a survey of the commercial aerospace economy, in which students examine the global opportunities and interconnected supply chains that encompass the industry. Throughout the semester, students hear directly from guest speakers from major companies operating in the space, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin and SpaceX.

Those speakers, Crocker says, are providing students and Smith School faculty with invaluable, firsthand knowledge of the commercial space industry. What’s gleaned from these speakers is ultimately shaping how the Smith School leverages its world-class faculty and resources to be at the forefront in preparing students for this industry where government, private enterprise and academia intersect.

“Being in my own classroom, listening to these industry experts, has just opened my eyes as to how much I really need to expand my horizons and embrace this new field,” says Crocker. “It's like looking through a telescope. We understand the telescope, but now, we're looking at something new and different. That's what excites me: seeing how we are growing and evolving.”

An Industry Already Seeing Lift-Off

NASA’s Apollo program of the 1960s and early 70s actualized science fiction by landing the first humans on the Moon. The feat illustrated unprecedented levels of human ingenuity and a Herculean effort by the government agency to develop technology and build critical infrastructure without support from commercial industry.

During the Apollo program’s 13 years of operations, the United States spent roughly $25 billion, or approximately $309 billion when adjusted for inflation to 2025 dollars, according to findings from The Planetary Society.

The novelty of rocket launches and space flights has yet to wear off, but much has changed since then, including NASA’s operations and the overall drivers of space commerce. Previously, the U.S. government owned its shuttles, but for programs like Artemis and beyond, NASA has opted to partner with private companies to purchase parts and services.

That decision, coupled with technological advancements, lower manufacturing and propulsion costs, and a general societal demand for increased satellite connectivity, has catalyzed competition in an industry that McKinsey & Company estimates will be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035.

Another factor contributing to McKinsey’s valuation of the industry lies in the beneficial downstream implications for other industries. Crocker takes a company like Uber, for example, which seemingly is not involved in space commerce, but is positioned to utilize space infrastructure in its operations.

“Uber works not only because we have Earth observation satellites that allow for mapping, but because we also have position, navigation and timing satellites, which give it GPS capabilities and create your point on a given map,” says Crocker. “Uber didn’t launch a satellite, but it’s the beneficiary of this existing space technology.”

Even the formative companies of the space commerce industry have observed their own transformations over the last several years, and in some cases, decades, forcing each other to adapt to shifting priorities. Most of these companies, like Blue Origin and SpaceX, are rooted in entrepreneurship, having “started with a handful of engineers and an idea,” says Crocker.

However, as those companies grew, so too did the required portfolio of skills and experience among their leadership teams, Crocker says, with early founders turning to higher education and MBA programs to gain experience in finance, accounting, marketing and even law, all fundamental to running a business.

“These companies understand that if you’re going to run a business, you need business skills. So let's prepare future Smith graduates to lead fearlessly in the new industry we can see on the horizon,” says Crocker.

Smith at the Center of Space Commerce

For Crocker and Dezső, the creation of BMGT478K, and Space at Smith more broadly, was a response to the writing on the wall: If space commerce executives are already recognizing a need for business expertise, then it follows that they will need to hire business-oriented, initial-entry undergraduate alumni, because they can’t be everywhere themselves.

Over the last two years, Dezső laid the groundwork for the initiative, while Smith School Dean Prabhudev Konana secured the fundraising needed to get it off the ground. Crocker is building on that foundation by leveraging his professional background in economics, law and government contracting to help shape the curriculum.

Collectively, their vision is to expand Smith’s talent pipeline toward aerospace companies and government organizations for entry-level positions and internships. 

“We hope that this process will hone the curriculum to reflect industry's needs, so that we can provide qualified candidates to apply for these jobs, and then, in turn, our alumni in the future will come back to us, and help us teach what they learned since they left, and what students need to know,” says Crocker. “Basically, it’s the scientific method in action. Right now, it’s BMGT478K, but that’s really just the beginning. It’s an entire curriculum.”

That process, so far, has succeeded in part through the efforts of Smith’s Office of Career Services (OCS), which has supported Crocker’s course by establishing relationships with recruiting teams and executives at aerospace companies and government agencies throughout the greater Washington, D.C. region.

OCS Account Executive Paul Schrantz, in particular, has spearheaded those efforts, resulting in bringing industry experts, like NASA Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program Deputy Associate Administrator Kevin Coggins, who, in an April visit to Van Munching Hall, shared with students why the government organization is seeking business-savvy professionals to help it accomplish tomorrow’s impossible feats.

Crocker says that Schrantz’s work is invaluable toward making “that immediate connection between students and recruiters” and paving the way for future career opportunities. For Schrantz, it’s also an immediate opportunity to capitalize on the region's rich aerospace history.

“Our Space at Smith program will enable us to align our specialty-trained students with the talent pipelines of leading aerospace manufacturers, service providers and, of course, NASA. This state holds a historic legacy in the space industry with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, COMSAT, Lockheed Martin and NASA Goddard. It only makes sense for the flagship university of the state to be a strategic source of business talent,” says Schrantz.

Crocker agrees, noting that Smith’s proximity to the nation’s capital, in addition to access to a breadth of potential corporate partners, offers unparalleled opportunities for student learning outcomes because “government spending through the Department of Defense and NASA is determined not at the launch pad” in places like Cape Canaveral, Southern California or Texas. Rather, at Smith, students will have their “fingers on the pulse of industry.”

“If you want to influence how the industry operates and is formed, it’s here. Any company you want to look at that is fundamental to this space commerce idea, wherever they're located, they also have an office here,” says Crocker. “This is the center of mass, and this is the place to be. That's our competitive advantage. That's ‘why’ Maryland.”

BMGT478K and What’s on the Horizon for Space at Smith

Crocker’s course represents the latest endeavor in the Smith School's ongoing exploration of new frontiers in business education. The course’s heavy emphasis on industry insights and career opportunities in space commerce offered students with academic backgrounds in areas other than supply chain, such as finance, accounting and marketing, a realistic path forward to compete for more jobs and apply what they know in a new context.

For Baires, who began his undergraduate career at UMD as an aerospace engineering major before transitioning to business, Crocker’s course and the emergence of Space at Smith have served as a boon for his “strong interest in the aerospace and defense industries,” and notes that it has given him the “opportunity to explore the business side of an industry” that he’s “been passionate about for years.”

He says the course has already had a “major impact” on his career direction, contributing to his acceptance of a strategic sourcing internship with Northrop Grumman.

“The course showed me how complex and interconnected the industry is, including policy, innovation and global competition, which expanded my perspective significantly. Hearing from professionals at different companies share their experiences has also been motivating and helped me better understand real-world applications of what we learn in class,” says Baires.

Crocker and Dezső also view Space at Smith as an opportunity to engage University of Maryland students across campus with STEM backgrounds or a general interest in the space commerce industry by adding business credentials to their academic portfolios.

In Crocker’s course alone, roughly 30% of students hailed from other schools across campus. That figure includes students like Kyle Krieger ’26, a mechanical engineering major who was also part of the Interdisciplinary Business Honors program for his first five semesters at UMD. He says that when he was looking for an elective to round out his schedule, he consulted the Smith School course list for classes that aligned with his interests. In finding BMGT478K, he was “immediately intrigued by the prospect of learning about the space economy and hearing from industry professionals.”

“I would highly recommend this course to those who are interested in space, whether that be a slight interest or a fervent passion,” says Krieger. “It will challenge you to think about how space has changed our lives and how it will continue to change society.”

Building on the success of BMGT478K, the Smith School will offer its next Space at Smith course, BMGT478X: Special Topics in Supply Chain Management: Space Logistics and Manufacturing, during the fall 2026 semester. This new course will dive even further into the supply chain, manufacturing and logistics systems that support the commercial space economy, while focusing on aspects such as production, launch integration, orbital logistics and return flows.

With plans already in motion to add a third undergraduate course to the catalog, Crocker says that its creation would be enough to establish a space commerce transcript notation and form the core of a business minor. That minor, Crocker says, would lay the groundwork for building what he hopes could eventually be the first dedicated undergraduate space commerce business program in the country.

At the graduate level, Space at Smith currently includes electives cross-listed between the Master of Science in Management Studies (MiM) and the MS in Supply Chain Management (SCM) programs, with the intent to eventually establish a full-fledged space commerce program, dependent on student demand.

Until then, Crocker aims to continue positioning the Smith School as a leader in this space and to impact students like supply chain management major Loann Daeninckx ’26, who, through Crocker’s course, found a new career path.

“I not only see how business is key for the future of space, but I also see how it is incredibly in demand right now. I now know that I want to go into aerospace, and I’m forming the industry connections here at Smith required to make that a reality,” says Daeninckx. “In taking the class, you might find you would love a career in aerospace. Even if you don't, you will likely find yourself in an industry that will be shaped by the expansion of aerospace in the coming years.”