Why I'm Optimistic About Our Future In Space

Almost everything that has transpired with launch technology up to this point has been done with government bureaucracy and its predictable and outrageously expensive launch costs. Nothing even remotely close to competitive market forces have played a part in the advancement of space technology and the reduction of launch costs. Therefore, projecting future progress based on past progress has no basis in reality, as the Law of Accelerating Returns, as Ray Kurzweil calls it, has not played any significant role yet. That is all about to change.

Approximately each year, the power of both the computer and the network doubles. By 2010, we can anticipate a $1000 computer close to teraflop speeds. Wireless devices will be everywhere interconnected. The marketplace for ideas will be enhanced by things like smart mobs and online repution systems, which will further accelerate the already rapid pace of "expert networking" and knowledge collaboration. The pace of technological growth will continue to accelerate and take all other fields of endeavor with it - including Space technologies golden child - nanotechnology.

Now I'm not talking about molecular replicating nanotechnology, not yet. I'm however talking about a material that already exists, but has not yet been mass produced - carbon nanotubes. The economic payoff of mass produced nanotubes is so great, that it's almost inevitable that venture capital will pour into this field as much if not more as it poured into silicon. Not only can we expect even more rapid increases in processors made of carbon nanotubes, but massive quantities of the strongest material ever made.

Carbon nanotubes have the necessary strength to manufacture a space elevator. A new company, High Life Systems, probably the first of many to come, has been established with this direct goal in mind. If they are successful, launch cost will plummet from their $20,000/lb to less than a $100/lb, and probably much less than that.

Reduced launch costs change everything.

It will radically democratize the space race, making it affordable for a lot more people and enterprises to take up shop. This in turn will create more economic incentives to reduce launch costs even further and advance basic space technology, including CELSS (Closed Environment Life Support Systems). As launch costs are reduced, and long-term habitation of space become easier, the drive to utilize space-based materials (near-earth approaching asteroids) will begin in earnest. Creating a permanent human presence on the moon would be easy as pie at this point. Not to mention that by this point, the state of nanotechnological development will be way past the mass-production of carbon based nanotubes.

As for timelines its hard to say. But I don't think its too far out of line to say that construction of the earths first space elevator could begin in the next 10-15 years. If that is the case, then we could easily see dozens, if not hundreds of humans taking up semi-permanent residence in GEO by 2020. By 2025, the number of human permanently residing in space - in GEO, at LaGrange, the moon and asteroids could easily number in the thousands.

Of course, all number of catastrophes could happen between now and then, but if the underling economic drivers are allowed to continue, such a timeline could even be conservative.

I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who said most predictions tend to hype and exagerate short-term gains while completely underestimate long-term ones.