For well over a century, writers of science fiction have looked to the stars when imagining the future. Of the two technological breakthroughs inherited from World War II - rocketry and computers - it was the former that most feverishly excited the science fiction imagination, even though the latter delivered vastly more real social and economic change.

Now, at the start of the new millennium, the world has been webbed together by electronic communications, based on fabulously sophisticated machines whose capabilities double every two years while their prices steadily plunge. Meanwhile, the cost of lifting payloads off the earth's surface has scarcely changed in decades.

As a number of disillusioned space commentators have recently noted, if it was possible to alchemically transform lead into gold by merely lifting it into outer space, the US space agency NASA - given the cost of space-shuttle flights - would be unable to turn this fact into a profitable business.

However, two contemporary trends seem set to finally revolutionize this dismal situation.

First came China's first manned spaceflight in October 2003, with the Shenzhou V rocket successfully carrying astronaut Yang Liwei into space followed by his safe return to earth. The potential for productive international space competition took a giant leap forwards. Hopefully China, and India too, will spread the dynamic spirit of economic reform to the sluggish world of government space activity, where it is most definitely needed.

Secondly, the launch last month of the world's first private manned space vehicle, "SpaceShipOne", backed by the fortune of US Microsoft entrepreneur Paul Allen, raised the exciting prospect that non-government agents could radically transform the field of space exploration.

The SpaceShipOne flight cost US$20 million. This is an astounding figure. Depressed NASA-watchers might be forgiven for doubting whether America's giant space bureaucracy could successfully move a paper clip across a desk for US$20 million, let alone design, build and launch a complicated space vehicle capable of carrying a human passenger beyond the earth's atmosphere.

Fields of human activity in which government bureaucracy prevails are consistently characterized by diminishing expectations. One only needs to reflect on the US school system or the British health service to realize why NASA was doomed to disappoint space-enthusiasts, and why - conversely - the launch of SpaceShipOne has so invigorated the faded dreams of post-war science fiction. Only when business rationality drives the overwhelmingly predominant part of human space activity will the colonization of the "final frontier" begin in earnest.

Best of all would be a combination of both trends, with international and commercial competition interlinking to dramatically accelerate the pace of off-planet projects. Technological innovation needs to be combined with commercial logic - as well as raw courage - to make a worldwide mushrooming of space activity economically compelling, and thus inevitable.

It has never been difficult to inspire people with the prospect of migration into outer space, now is the time to move beyond bureaucratic paralysis by prioritizing practicalities. If a new space race is beginning, let's try to get everybody involved.

starcomment@yahoo.com