|
The "Space 2000: Space Exploration at the Millenium" symposium held in Washington D.C. in March 1999 concluded that the real space age is just beginning. That's primarily because rocket propulsion technology hasn't advanced significantly since NASA's heyday of the '60s and '70s. "For 30 years, we've been using basically the same vehicles," said NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin. With the "miserable inefficiency" of current technology, Goldin said, it costs $10 thousand per pound just to get off the ground. But in the next 10 years, he predicted, the cost will be reduced to $1,000 per pound and later still, to $100 per pound. Goldin predicted that a revolution in transportation will occur in the next 50 years, comparable to the revolution in communications of the past half-century. |
