Replication Data for: Commercializing Low Earth Orbit

The International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory has been the chariot for scientific experimentation in Low Earth Orbit. Directed by NASA, many of them are conducted in collaboration with private companies. This paper analyzes the outcomes of these experiments using administrative data on scholarly publications and patents. Our descriptive statistics suggest a steadily increasing trend of private sector participation in space station research. Using measures based on citations, we show (1) ISS publications receive more citations than if they were developed on earth, (2) public-private collaboration does not attenuate the quality of science, and (3) it is, however, associated with the growing patent portfolios of space-investing companies.