Michael Mealing has an interesting perspective on the past couple weeks' events in entrepreneurial space.

I was in the terminal room when the guys from UIUC came in and started to demo their new web browser (at the time this wasn't a big deal because gopher had a much higher adoption rate). The one thing that caught my eye was the fact that it had pictures. And then Tim Berners-Lee came into the room and proceeded to watch the demo (he didn't like the IMG tag very much). It was at that moment that I felt something. It wasn't buzz or hype or anything like that. It was just a quiet, but very rapid build up of human potential energy. I told myself to remember that feeling.

I got that same feeling hearing about the things that happened this past weekend. And I don't intend on missing out on it again.

I wonder if a lot of dot-com refugees are going to feel the same way.

He also points out that last weekend's Space Access conference coincided with the tenth anniversary of the rollout of the Mosaic web browser, which is the one that really got the web going.

I agree that we're on the cusp of something new, but I think analogies with the web are off the mark.

The reason the web exploded was because of two factors: 1) it was a tremendously valuable thing, which came along and filled a great void of untapped demand, and 2) The barriers to entry into the World Wide Web were very, very low. This caused an explosion of activity, and soon a critical mass was reached that caused the average person to go online. From there, huge amounts of capital flowed into it.

The difference with space is that there is neither a huge untapped demand for access to space (at least, not for the cost or risk of these early programs), nor are the barriers to entry low. That's not a formula for explosive growth, but for incrementalism.

And we shouldn't get giddy and start thinking about space hotels. I believe Rutan will get to 62 miles in a ballistic trajectory. Going from there to orbit is several orders of magnitude more difficult. And going from orbit to productive, commercial space exploitation on anything but a trivial individual-paying-passenger level is another couple of orders of magnitude farther away.

I think what we're really seeing here is not the wakening of a new sustainable frontier as it is a great charitable venture by dot-com millionaires. What happened is that a lot of people who love space and technology suddenly came into huge sums of money, and they are spending it on the world's most expensive toys. Luckily, that adventure benefits all of us. And frankly, it's exactly what I hoped people like Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen would do with their billions.

What we have to hope for is that a 'killer app' for space is found before their money runs out. That might be tourism, it might be new military applications, or it might be something else. But without it, we're on an eventual dead-end here, because there is no current business plan for showing a profit from these ventures.

In support of Dan's comments... remember the BBS scene? I think this was a leading indicator of demand. Although there is obviously *some* market for expensive joyrides (and I hate to say it that way, but it does get the point across.)

So... Internet:BBS ... XCor:???

The thing with the web was you didn't need to have a realistic business plan to get the kind of money from VC's that would make most space Entrepreneurs weak at the knees.

I think it'll be a long time before they can afford to go for hype again. A good business plan, a sound management team will help. But I doubt very much if they're going to be placing much store in "industry market sizing" reports for new markets.