Unless the cost per pound of sending something into space comes way down, like to $50 per pound, most of the engines of economic change and innovation will never be able to afford getting involved in space, except as sub-contractors to the larger companies that can afford the launch costs. Right now, only larg commercial satellite companies and business consortia have the money to afford putting satellites into space. They have no plans to consider other space-related projects.

NASA is committed to developing technologies that should bring launch costs down to about $500/pound by 2040 or so.

As I understand it, most of the economic innovation comes from small companies with gross revenues well below $50 million per year. Microsoft and Apple started as 'garage' companies with revenues below $50,000 per year. Such individuals and companies would never be able to afford the costs of their own launch vehicles. Until launch vehicle costs come way down in the next century, I'm afraid the only role that small-scale private enterprise will have will be as partners with the larger companies like Rockwell, Hughes, Lockhead and so on.

As for private enterprise in general, the tide is already turning with NASA 'privatizing' many functions and programs that it originally handled. This means that in the near future, private enterprise will be given a freer reign in defining what it would like to do, and how it wants to make profit from its space activities. When that happens, space exploration will have transitioned from a scientific/political curiosity to a profit-making enterprise. If NASA had been allowed to patent all of the technologies and inventions it generated since 1960, NASA would be a $50 - 100 billion per year business by now! Instead, it has to go to Congress every year and plead for its dwindling research budget, and defend its very existence.

Meanwhile, keep your eye on the Xprize competition (www.xprize.com) If you have a good idea about how to cheaply get into space and can build a working spacecraft that can be used for tourism, you can win a $10 million prize. All you have to do is to build a launch vehicle funded by private money. The vehicle has to be flown twice within a 14-day period. On the first launch it will have to carry a single person to 100 kilometers, but it must be capable of carrying two additional people or an equivalent amount of ballast. For the second flight, no more than 10% of the vehicles first flight non-propellant mass can be replaced for the second flight. So far there are 28 teams competing for this prize, and none of them include any of the major aerospace companies that currently work on NASA or DoD programs.

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