8th Continent Lab: From Duebendorf to Outer Space

The following excerpt is an edited version of the article by David Werner, published in UZH news. Full article

At the Innovation Park Zurich (IPZ), researchers, companies, and investors explored new business fields in space—and Zurich’s chances of helping to shape them. At the same time, the eighth Swiss parabolic flight campaign came to an end at the Dübendorf airfield, during which a UZH spin-off tested technologies for producing human tissue in space.

Inside the hangar, talk turned to new markets in space; outside, a research aircraft was preparing to land. On board were experiments that had briefly been exposed to weightlessness during a parabolic flight. A short while later, participants in the 8th Continent Lab were able to board the plane and get a firsthand look at how experiments in Dübendorf can turn into new real-world applications.

The gathering at Innovation Park Zurich brought together 150 guests from academia, industry, finance and the space sector. The theme of the event was the eighth continent – another name for outer space, which is increasingly offering new opportunities for businesses outside the traditional space industry. With UZH’s involvement, Innovation Park gave attendees a chance to meet potential partners and develop ideas for new business ventures. Some of the technologies behind those ventures had landed right in front of participants’ eyes that same day.

Peter Bodmer,  president of the Zurich Innovation Park Foundation and Vice President of the UZH Board of the University cited three developments that are making space increasingly attractive to other companies as well:

• First, the economy is already more closely tied to Earth’s orbit than many realize: insurance companies use satellite data to assess climate risks, energy companies use it to detect leaks, and transport networks and power grids rely on precise timing signals from space. Many companies, he said, are already part of the space economy without knowing it.
• Second, commercial space stations such as the proposed Starlab fleet would let many more companies conduct research and even develop production processes in space – for producing human tissue, medications or new materials, for example.
• Third, applications that used to be mostly unprofitable are now commercially viable thanks to rapidly falling launch costs.

Bodmer illustrated the growth potential with a forecast from the World Economic Forum and McKinsey: the space economy was $630 billion in 2023 and could grow to $1.8 trillion by 2035. More than 60 percent of that growth, he noted, would come from industries outside of the traditional aerospace industry, including logistics, food, retail, communications, insurance and pharmaceuticals.

“There has never been a better time for Switzerland to get involved in outer space,” said Bodmer. He pointed out that standards, business models and partnerships are already taking shape, and latecomers will have to play by rules that others have already set.

After touring the Cessna on the airfield, the afternoon continued with discussions on potential development and business opportunities at five “networking islands” organized by UZH. Topics ranged from life sciences, new materials and manufacturing processes to data centers, artificial intelligence and flight platforms, plus discussions on the funding of space technology. Direct exchanges between researchers, companies and investors once again showed the breadth of possibilities offered by the space economy.

A follow-up to the 8th Continent Lab is already planned. Even larger in scale, the 8th Continent Main event will take place at Innovation Park Zurich sometime in 2027.

Photo credit: CSA / R. Sablotny