If I were in DC, I’d attend this event on the Hill on Friday. But in my experience, space historians won’t necessarily do a good job of extrapolating into the future, particularly when it comes to technological trends.
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But in my experience, space historians won’t necessarily do a good job of extrapolating into the future, particularly when it comes to technological trends.
Who, in your experience, would do a good job of extrapolating into the future?
Technologists.
Science fiction writers.
Like A.C. Clarke? Entertaining as he was, Clarke had a miserable track record as a prognosticator.
My point is that space historians don’t generally understand the technology well enough to know what’s possible with different incentives. For instance, Henry Hertzfeld doesn’t really seem to understand the cause of the current high cost of space access. SpaceX has completely broken the traditional cost models, but many in the industry haven’t quite come to grips with that yet.
.. umm, because they haven’t done it yet. When they actually launch some satellites (particularly, to GEO) and the word gets out, you’ll see the real change in the market.
I’m pretty sure RazakSAT was a satellite.
A.I.S.!!!
George Gilder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gilder
tends to make vaguely numeric arguments about what the future might look like.
This may lead to more accurate predictions. An added benefit is you can substitute your own parameters into his methodology to generate your own predictions.