The "space elevator" is an ingenious idea and I hope it becomes feasible someday, but this dig about NASA using 40 year old technology is just plain wrong. It's that, and idiotic as well. There IS no other technology that will do the job.
Sadly, although the X-Prize successes were entertaining, they really did nothing to advance the state of the art in space access. I know I'm jumping to a slightly different topic, but the same idocy seems to surround that event as well.
Building a two stage vehicle (yes, it was two stages, the first being very slow and powered with turbine engines), which goes up to the edge of space, and then falls back down is of little value.
To compare the relative cost and complexity of the X-Prise vehicle with the original Mercury flights is meaningless. Those first few flights were just baby step tests of a vehicle which was intended to go into orbit, and return.
Had the X-Prise required orbit, then the X-Prise winner would have been very similar to either a Mercury like system, or a Space Shuttle like system.
[Sadly, although the X-Prize successes were entertaining, they really did nothing to advance the state of the art in space access.]
Any progress we make toward getting ourselves and our payloads into space will necessitate us refining and improving current solid rocket and liquid fuel engine technology and also rethinking how we use the technology as wisely as possible within a NASA program.
The space shuttle is an example of a program that can't grow to be much more than what it was decades ago because of it's reliance on 1 vehicle to do everything from lifting cargo to getting people into orbit or repairing satellites.
Building specialized vehicles which are tailored to their specific functions is going to be the way to perform these tasks in the future, but all of these vehicles are going to be powered by modern versions of Robert H. Goddard's technology.