Anyone here feel all optimistic about space technology suddenly taking off like a rocket?

Not at all. "Big accelerator physics" isn't doing much though you never know what's around the corner. Astrophysics is where physics has plenty to discover. How about Tabby's star and of course gravity waves?

DNA, RNA and related research is the future for now and plain old chemistry isn't finished by far. There are huge areas of land that have barely been looked at by geologists, and then there are the oceans.

Definitely.

Mars will be the watershed.

The missions will not be stopped as quick as the Apollos.

Too much to discover, compared with the Moon.

Including making it a permanent Habitat.

<QUOTE>Fundamental Science has hit a brick wall.</QUOTE>

<QUOTE>there are no more "new fundamental sciences" to come.</QUOTE>

That reminds me a quote (I think it was from David Hilbert) a bit over 100 years ago, where he saying that all of Physics was solved and there were only two small problems remaining, which was the Ultraviolet Catastrophe and the negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. You should know what came out of the solution for those two "small" problems...

But hey kid! If you already know what are dark matter and dark energy, feel free to share.

<QUOTE>The cost of science has now exceeded benefits.</QUOTE>

Mumble mumble ... Zika ... mumble ... ebola ... mumble mumble.

<QUOTE>People seem to be totally engaged by the details of individual projects as in how these are marketed to the public, which is fair enough for space enthusiasts.</QUOTE>

Speaking of "space enthusiasts", you may want to take a look at Neil deGrasse Tyson's book "Space Chronicles".

Anyway, it is a staple of people working in fundamental research having to justify their work to others, because people keep asking "what's this going to do for ME?" I'm also reminded of Michael Faraday's quip "Sir one day you may tax it." on the subject of the usefulness of research on electricity.

The point I'm trying to make is not that scientific research is not done for the purpose of a potential usefulness or spin-offs, but rather for curiosity. And people keep at it because they don't know what they'll find next -- that's why it's called "research".

I understand that you and me, as taxpayers, expect that those 2% better yield a jetpack we can use, but if you're waiting for private initiative to finance it you can forget about it. People have to come to grips that fundamental research is driven by curiosity and not by spin-offs. Otherwise mathematicians would have stopped their work on number theory and we'd still be doing cryptography with substitution cyphers or something.

The way I see it, the fantastic boom we witnessed in the last century or so was also an effect of suddenly having MORE qualified people working on the subjects, which meant that the "easier" stuff to find was more readily available. I can't try to figure out whether one future Einstein or Noether may have died recently because, for example, drowning in the Mediterrean trying to make it across or may still be alive picking up trash in a landfill in Mumbai or trying to make it through the day in San Paolo. That may very well have happened by now a couple of times, which is to our detriment [1].

No new fundamental basic sciences? Of course not. Astronomer Arthur Eddington once said, "All of Science is either Physics or stamp collecting." In other words, the only true science is Physics. And that will never change. When cavemen tamed fire, they were employing Physics. (Not stamp collecting.) Sir Isaac Newton worked out the Physics of space travel in the 1600s, but it was some 350 years later before the engineering to accomplish space travel even began to be a reality.

I agree that advancements in Physics will be fewer and fewer as time progresses, due to the ever increasing complexity of achieving advances. But there are still plenty of advances possible, in my opinion. And we have centuries more of engineering to discover/invent in order for engineering to catch up with the fundamental knowledge base.

Why is matter preferred over antimatter in our Universe?

What is the deal with Quantum Entanglement? (It happens at least 10,000 times faster than light speed.)

There is plenty left to discover and then put to good use, Physics and engineering wise.

What we need is another space race... Maybe limit it - no break-neck spending like we did in the 60's, but... the US only gets off it's butt to do anything when there's a challenge involved.... India and China are poised to be the next great explorers - cheap labor, lots of resources, and an will to advance their own technology. China, more than India, because of their dictatorial government - they don't need the will of the people; they just say, "do it", and it gets done.

Don't worry, the boffins will build that space elevator one day,

Question: Since the end of the space elevator is geostationary, and is moving at 11,052 kph, how is the huge horizontal momentum imparted to the climbing elevator car

What hubris to think that we have reached the pinnacle of knowledge. Science isn't constrained by anything. How do you know that there are no new fundamental sciences? What does that even mean? You assert a lot of things but offer nothing but opinion to back it up.

Had to ask this because one of my fans specifically asked me.

But I was wondering if anyone has anything insightful to add to the debate. As I see it, the "energy age" is over, and with it the "space age", because the latter depended upon the excess energy available over that needed to maintain civilisation which proceeded from the former.

Cheers!