Jay Manifold has some disturbing thoughts on the recent successful amateur space launch. He’s right–we are going to have to come up with some smart solutions to this problem, or we may remain bound to the planet, which is just one of many ways in which the terrorists could win.

This is, of course, a generic problem with the development of any advanced technology as it becomes increasingly less advanced, and available to a wider distribution of people on the bell curve, both in terms of judgement and evil intent. This was one of the things that had Bill Joy’s knickers in a knot a few years ago.