Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
Our velocity has not increased dramatically over the previous 25 years, much less than the proceeding 25 years, due to diminishing returns on investment (11 km/s for Apollo 10 versus 16.2 km/s for New Horizons).
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Which proves precisely nothing.
It's true that technology does not advance along the naïve exponentiating curve that some futurists like to imagine. It rises in S curves, slow-fast-slow, then later another S curve, as a rule, when some new development happens.
But whenever one is planning for multi-decade time spans, the risk of an S curve surge (i.e. a breakthrough) is always present, and by its very nature unpredictable.
That's also why trying to plan things centuries in advance is a crapshoot at best.