Startups defy gravity to explore space's commercial frontiers

Small firms spot an opportunity in emerging industry of microgravity experimentation

In a cramped office hidden within the poorly lit corridors of a shopping mall in Israel, sits the equivalent of Nasa's mission control in Houston.

Yet there are no rows of scientists and flight controllers wearing headsets, all of their faces fixed on a large screen charting spacecraft. And no astronauts telling them they have a problem.