In his new Tech Central Station column, Rand Simberg sees a potential for moving on to the next stage from space exploration's long childhood:
After decades, ruts as deep as this are hard to get out of, but we may be about to do it. With the full funding of the X Prize, and the emergence of dot-com millionaires' interest in the nascent commercial space transport industry, all that's about to change. We may be on the verge of introducing a disruptive technology, which will have interesting, and possibly unsettling effects on both our economy and national security, and sooner than we think.
Read the whole thing without delay.
Hmm...wasn't somebody around here talking about disruptive technology (actually, I think the phrase he used was discontinuous change) just the other day?
Meanwhile, Speculist reader Eric S. has proposed a disruptive idea of his own: use the technology behind a proposed gamma-ray weapon as the basis for an orbital propulsion system. (See the comments.) In his TCS piece, Rand bemoans the baggage that the military origins of our present missile-based launch systems created for subsequent applications of the technology. If we were to convert our (as yet nonexistent) gamma-ray weapon into a launch system, I wonder whether we would encounter some of the same problems.
Plus ca change, as the French astronauts always say. Or are they cosmonauts? Plus c'est la meme chose, I guess.
UPDATE: Good discussion on the potential of sub-orbital systems going on on Transterrestrial Musings (see the comments).