Thanks for posting, I think also of Concorde as a noticeable point of inflexion of (Western) technological progression, for the same simple reason as you’ve identified; profit, or the lack of it.

I am not so optimistic that we might see profit-driven Space travel though.

If we factor in the tendency for capitalist wealth to concentrate in ever smaller numbers of people, we are left with a very small prospective customer base for space tourism.

After those few would have tried it, the novelty would have worn off. It doesn’t seem likely anyone would wish to do more than a few times, unless they were somehow visiting other planets, which is a whole new ball game in terms of cost to develop.

So the business case is actually pretty poor. I am very skeptical that the “money” being burnt by private space industry development can ever amount to anything close to getting “back” into space for real.

I would keep an eye on places who can still put major Governmental wealth towards things though, in a similar way as it was done before.

If something like Concorde, or even real Space travel is likely to reappear from anywhere, I think it is far more likely to be from somewhere like China.

But since they have no competition, will they still be driven to do it?