This report on how Space technology helped build a race- winning car for the Le Mans 24 hour is a classic example of Apollo-era justification of the high cost of space development. It is argued that great spin-offs have resulted that benefit other areas of civilisation (See also Teflon, Velcro, and computers for similar if often misguided arguments).

However, the problem remains that space projects are shouldering the financial burden of innovating these materials which then can be applied in other fields.

IMHO, the era of CATS can only begin when this article is written from the other perspective - that a new satellite uses technology developed for Formula-1 racing, or whatever, to make it lighter and stronger and cheaper. If other areas of human endeavour bear the development burden and space becomes just another application of the technology, then it becomes cheaper by orders of magnitude.

One major step that has to be taken here is to permit spacecraft NOT to be cutting-edge technology, but to be - at most - "early adopters" of technology developed elsewhere and - at best - a consumer of standard off-the-shelf products.

I doubt that NASA will take note of this, of course...