Space industry is an ever-growing area of activity in New Eden for which startup companies commonly require venture capital funding. It should be noted that New Eden is host to thousands of solar systems, each of which houses innumerable corporations who conduct their business primarily on the surface of their own planets; going into space, far from being a given, is in fact nowhere near an option for most of these.
It is possible to begin operating a space industrial company without space facilities, particularly when gaining experience of operating space craft and establishing contacts, but establishing industrial or research facilities in space is a key step in developing such an enterprise.