Dr. Thomas L. Matula
Thomas L. Matula, MBA, PhD is Professor of Business Administration at Sul Ross State University’s Rio Grande College of Business, where he chairs the university’s new MBA in Space Commerce, the first program of its kind in the United States. He serves on the Board of Directors of Space Renaissance International (SRI) and with the Space Renaissance Academy, and is a space economist whose work spans more than three decades of research into commercial spaceports, lunar settlement business strategy, and the economic frameworks needed for sustainable human expansion into the solar system.
Tom has been with Sul Ross State University since 2016, teaching strategic management, economics, and general business at the undergraduate and graduate levels and developing curriculum at the institution’s Uvalde campus, whose southwest Texas service region contains two FAA-licensed spaceports. He recently launched and chairs the Rio Grande College of Business’s MBA in Space Commerce, designed to give engineers, scientists, and technicians the management and business skills required to build viable space-economy enterprises. Read Sul Ross launches new Space Commerce MBA.
In September 2024, Tom presented The Role of Space Development in the Global Economy at the United Nations in New York City as part of a Space Renaissance International workshop in support of a proposed 18th UN Sustainable Development Goal addressing the space economy. Read SRSU Professor Thomas L. Matula to present ’The Role of Space Development in the Global Economy’ at UN workshop.
Tom’s principal contribution to space-settlement strategy is the Astrosettlement Development Strategy, a four-stage economically grounded roadmap for human expansion into the solar system that progresses from Earth-based research to industrialization of the Moon, settlement of the solar system, and eventual interstellar migration. The strategy is the subject of his book in progress, Astrosettlement: An Evolutionary Strategy for Space Settlement.
In The civilization survival scale: A biological argument for space settlement in The Space Review, he proposed an evolutionary-biology classification of civilizations by their ability to inhabit diverse habitats, positioning the framework as an alternative to the Kardashev Scale for measuring civilizational resilience to extinction-level events. He has contributed regularly to The Space Review, including the multi-author analysis The Lunar Development Cooperative: A new idea for enabling lunar settlement.
With coauthor Darryl J. Mitry, Tom published Beyond the Covid Shock: The Great Economic Transition in 2021, analyzing the structural changes the pandemic forced on the American economy and the opportunities that emerged in the reset.
His refereed publications include An Economic Based Strategy for Human Expansion into the Solar System and The Role of Space Habitat Research in Providing Solutions to the Multiple Environmental Crises on Earth, both in the Proceedings of the Space Renaissance International 3rd World Congress in 2021, Affordable Design for Space-Based Biological Laboratories for Alternative Gravity Levels (ASCE Earth and Space Conference, 2018), and HALE: A Flexible Approach to Settlement of the Solar System (ASCE Earth and Space Conference, 2014), which introduced the Habitat Autonomous Locomotive Expandable concept of kilometer-scale self-sustaining mobile space habitats. Read The Role of Space Habitat Research in Societal Adaption to Climate Change on Earth.
Tom is a frequent guest on The Space Show hosted by Dr. David Livingston, where he has discussed astrosettlements, commercial space development, spaceports, lunar settlement, and the post-pandemic economy across multiple appearances. Recent broadcasts include Broadcast 4336: Dr. Tom Matula (February 2025) and Broadcast 4220: Dr. Tom Matula (June 2024). He has also been a featured speaker at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC), lecturing on viable lunar business plans and participating in panels on moon exploration and settlement. Read his ISDC speaker profile.
Before joining Sul Ross, Tom was Instructor of Marketing and Management at Great Basin College in Elko, Nevada from 2010 to 2015, where he also served as Bachelor of Applied Science Program Supervisor from 2010 to 2015, moving the AAS in Entrepreneurship, Business Administration, and Accounting online and supervising the relocation of several other Bachelor of Applied Science degrees onto online platforms. He was Associate Professor at California International Business University from 2008 to 2010 and Assistant Professor at the University of Houston-Victoria from 2001 to 2009, where he taught in the MBA and BBA programs and was part of the team that built the first AACSB-accredited online MBA, granted in April 2005.
Earlier in his academic career, he held appointments at National University in San Diego, where in 1998 he helped guide one of the first online MBA programs in the United States, and at New Mexico Highlands University, Mountain State University, and Sul Ross State University’s Del Rio campus.
Tom earned his PhD in Business Administration with a Marketing concentration from New Mexico State University in 1994, with his dissertation on commercial spaceports focused on the Southwest Regional Spaceport — now Spaceport America. While at NMSU he was a member of the Southwest Regional Spaceport Task Force and lead author of the 1995 Southwest Regional Spaceport: Technical Feasibility Report and Strategic Development published by the Physical Science Laboratory at NMSU. He earned his MBA in Management from New Mexico State University in 1986 and his Bachelor of General Studies from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in 1983.
Tom’s public commentary on space policy is regularly picked up by regional and trade media. His Space Review analysis of Spaceport America was the basis for the syndicated column Robinson: What’s Next For Spaceport America?, which examined New Mexico’s pivot from broad space-industry development to suborbital tourism. His public-service roles have included Board Member and Chair of the Strategic Planning Subcommittee of Middle Rio Grande Workforce Solutions from 2018 to 2020, overseeing industry cluster analysis to guide regional workforce development strategy, and service on the Nevada Department of Education committee that developed statewide CTE Standards for Entrepreneurship from 2012 to 2013.
Tom has lived in the southwestern United States for most of the past forty years, with residences in New Mexico, Texas, California, and Nevada.
Visit his LinkedIn profile, Sul Ross faculty page, and full Curriculum Vitæ. Follow him on Facebook and X.