It’s been a while since I added to the Reasons For Optimism series, but that’s more due to me lacking focus than because of any dearth of good news. Just in the last week we saw some cool progress in all three of the sectors that I think will greatly transform our lives in the next decade.
7. Outer Space. After a successful rocket launch on Tuesday, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule successfully docked at the International Space Station yesterday, becoming the first private company to do so. The numbers are complicated, but SpaceX has essentially caught up to NASA’s capabilities and costs in just a few years and is on track to make things even better and cheaper and faster (using more reusable parts, for one). It’s pretty cool to read this latest Elon Musk interview about their current successes and future plans, and then look at the confidence he had four years ago after some initial failures made others skeptical.
8. 3D Printing. Cubify started shipping their new pre-built 3D printer model, Cube, for $1,299. Costs have been coming down on 3D printers in the last few years, and while there are already cheaper models that only run a few hundred dollars, they come in kits that must be put together, sometimes requiring painstaking adjustments to work properly. Cubify’s model will help move 3D printers from the domain of tinkering hobbyists into the mainstream, creating a new price point for pre-built models compared to the $1,749 MakerBot. I think the next advance will be to drop under a thousand bucks, but $1,299 was a common price for desktop computers just several years ago and is well within the reach of the middle class (I don’t know how much materials and operating costs are, though).
9. Driverless cars. California’s Senate passed a bill in support of self-driving cars, and it will go “to the Assembly for consideration next month.” Nevada has already signed a law approving them, and other states are getting ready to follow. Most state laws don’t address driverless cars one way or the other, so it’s encouraging that laws giving explicit approval are easily passing without any opposition trying to explicitly deny them. Now that Google has racked up thousands of miles in its self-driving car, it’s starting to give lawmakers free rides to convince them of the enormous potential increases in safety (along with the lower opportunity costs of driving and potentials for increased efficiency).
If those aren’t enough reasons to get excited about the future, Expected Optimism has a few more…