In article , (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

I'm obviously assuming here that progress in the next 30
years will be substantially faster than in the last 30 -- but there
are lots of good reasons for thinking that may be the case.

What are a few of these reasons?

Well, for starters, this is almost always the nature of technological
progress. Check out any of Kurzweil's work, for example [1]; he has
plotted quantitative progress over time on a wide variety of
technologies, and finds an exponential curve again and again. The
illusion of linear progress is a result of the fact that, on the very
short timescale at which our attention generally operates, an
exponential curve is approximately linear. But that approximation
quickly breaks down at longer time scales.

Next, let's consider all the things that were being done wrong for the
last 30 years, which are finally starting to change:

- Space was developed as a massively wasteful government program;
without any tangible benefits, such programs are politically
unsustainable, leading to the stagnation we have seen. Now, we are
seeing substantial progress being made on a commercial basis (e.g. Zero
Gravity, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX), and this is far more likely to be
self-sustaining, leading to progress.

- Once the cold war rivalry as justification for space development
evaporated, the space community seized on science as its raison d'etre.
This was a mistake; space science is almost entirely pure research, and
there isn't much money in that (in the short term anyway); moreover,
similar amounts of pure research could be done on the ground for far
less money, making every space project a political battle. Now space is
being developed for more mundane but far more profitable purposes, like
space tourism. The only politics involved here is in regulation, and
that seems to be going reasonably well so far.

- Flight rate. So far, about 500 humans have ever been in space.
Virgin Galactic plans to fly about 500 passengers per year. Manned
space launches currently happen at a rate of about half a dozen
(launches, not people) per year; Virgin will be flying more than once
per week. And of course, VG will not be the only game in town; Space
Adventures also seems pretty credible to me in their plans for
suborbital tourism. So in a few years, we're looking at a flight rate
orders of magnitude higher than what we have now. Even if this is
suborbital rather than orbital, this will result in a much faster
feedback & revision cycle, and so faster progress.

- Advances in related technologies. Electronics, GPS, avionics, and
other technologies are now available in forms that were science fiction
30 years ago. They're not only dramatically more capable, but
dramatically cheaper, too. These make up a substantial fraction of the
cost of a spacecraft, even if not the weight, and advances is these
should drive the overall cost down too.

Anybody want to add to this list?

Best,
- Joe

[1] http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/a...ml?printable=1