Robert Zimmerman says that we're on the verge of a new renaissance in space exploration, with an explosion of creativity partly fueled by the new media.

"With the advent of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs -- whose development occurred partly because scientists needed a lightweight and dependable way to illuminate greenhouses on the space shuttle"

This is a bit of a stretch. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I don't think space applications had much of anything to do with the development of LED's.

I will believe it when I see it.

"I will believe it when I see it."

Agreed. He seems a little too wildly optimistic about all the space startups. But we have seen this before, and relatively recently. Remember the mid to late 1990s when there were something like half a dozen RLV companies, plus 2-3 private lunar exploration companies? International Space Enterprises, Rotary Rocket, LunaCorp, MirCorp, the Artemis Society, etc. Some of the people involved in the current projects have crashed a number of companies before. Anybody remember Pacific American Launch Systems and the Phoenix reusable rocket? Anybody remember Radio Shack's plan to drive a rover around the moon?

As for the claim that nothing of consequence was invented in the 1970s, I think that the personal computer might have been developed then. It is a little more notable than better lamps for cave dwellers.

I agree the white LED thing was a stretch, but I am definitely encouraged by the private space ventures. I am especially happy to see so many companies going after the air launched booster approach. I find it ironic that Boeing's space R&D people were convinced in the mid-'80s this was the way to go, and yet they were stymied for 20 years by the "status quo" crowd. The prospect of a Boeing/Lockheed launch monopoly makes it even less likely we'll ever see a new idea from any of the "old space" crowd.

What a miserable time I picked to work for the aerospace giants. How could I have guessed when I was growing up that things would get so bad so quickly? I remember when NASA was launching rockets to the Moon on a regular basis and the US armed forces were showing off a new, faster, fighter jet every year or two.

Now innovative consumer products are frozen out by concerns over lawsuits, and the old line aerospace industry is institutionally structured to squelch innovation. The 21st Century is a heck of a lot different than I envisioned it would be as a kid.

Thank goodness we have computers and the internet. It is a good, low overhead, outlet for creativity.

>Anybody remember Pacific American Launch Systems and the Phoenix reusable rocket? Anybody remember Radio Shack's plan to drive a rover around the moon?

Anybody remember Robert Truax and Gary Hudson?

It could be that for forty years, a malign conspiracy of Big Government and Big Vendors has stifled innovation in orbital launch.

Or it could be that orbital launch is harder, more expensive, and less amenable to clever fixes -- from the technology side OR the market-forces side -- than anyone likes to admit.

The LED bit is sheer nonsense. We have blue, violet and now white LEDs since the 90s because of one man:

Shuji Nakamura
http://www.sciencewatch.com/jan-feb2000/sw_jan-feb2000_page3.htm

The company he worked for, Nichia, made fluorescent light coatings. He developed blue LEDs on overtime, solo, in harsh conditions. Nichia is now one of the LED leaders in the market, and Nakamura got fed up with them getting all the money, so he left.

Space Shuttle illumination my...

"Or it could be that orbital launch is harder, more expensive, and less amenable to clever fixes -- from the technology side OR the market-forces side -- than anyone likes to admit."

Yes, no doubt made more difficult by the use of computers instead of slide rules. The computer on my desk is more powerful than a super-computer was not too long ago. We have computational fluid dynamic, finite elements analysis, and 3D CAD software and use them to create hardware that's marginal at best. As long as it just barely meets the letter of the requirement, who cares? As long as a pile of trash pays the same, if not better than the real thing, who cares?

Speaking of trash, in my company we have engineers taking out the garbage. It gives a whole new meaning to the term sanitation engineer. The company figured out they could bill the government the same for their time whether they were designing cutting edge hardware, or hauling out trash. They could never charge $200/hr to have a janitor do the same job. That's just one example of the no value added chores they do. Heck, I remember when we had draftsmen doing drawings - back in the days when we built things. Now they have engineers packed into cube farms like sardines, and not a draftsman to be found. Your tax dollars at work.

We do less with more resources than any generation of Americans ever. What a fine distinction.

I was going to get into a big philosophical thing here- but in general, I agree with Dfens. US hardware capability seems to have peaked about 1967- I say this because I drove a '67 Ford until 1993- would STILL be driving it if some jerk in a Cadillac had not run a stop sign.

The first LED I saw was used as an incoming signal indicator on a model 35RO teletype, c1974. If NASA had developed them for 'greenhouse' lighting, I doubt NASA Life Sciences would have needed me as a consultant on DC inverter ballasts to fire compact fluorescent tubes for (you guessed it) greenhouse lighting circa 1991.

> We do less with more resources than any generation of Americans ever...

> US hardware capability seems to have peaked about 1967...

Yeah, I cry myself to sleep every night over our failures since the 1960s in IT and microelectronics, telecommunications, the Internet, molecular biology and biotech and medicine, and so on. Why, if we weren't such abject failures there might be foreign students in our science and engineering schools... who knows, there might even be a sprinkling of foreigners seeking H-1Bs to work in our high-tech industries...

C'mon, guys. The reasons for stagnation in manned space (and American car-making, if you insist) are many and well worth discussing. But to generalize from those to the Decline and Fall of Everything isn't a promising start.

"US hardware capability seems to have peaked about 1967"

Copy that. What amazes me is the lack of will to fix it. It is obvious to anyone, except an idiot or someone profiting from the current situation, that things are ridiculously bad, but no one wants to fix it. Political conservatives say the answer is to throw more money at it. They don't say this with regard to any other problem except aerospace, but with aerospace suddenly we are expected to believe throwing money at the problem is the answer. The liberals' only answer is to hug a tree.

There is no excuse for the conservatives. They should see that the answer is to go back to what worked with regard to the business of space. The only reason they don't is because of all the money the defense companies send their way. Money buys the blind eye they need.