I used to think a generic SF rules companion* would not be commercially viable, until I looked at how popular GURPS Space is. The advantage of putting a "BRP Space" out sooner rather than later is that it provides a unifying basis for people to go off and write their own, fully BRP-compatible setting books under the Chaosium license or directly for Chaosium itself.
On the other hand, if everyone comes up with their own rules for their own setting, not only are they wasting effort re-inventing the wheel but the result might be further dilution of the "core" of BRP.
I'm not saying it would be easy, nor that I am qualified to write more than a small part of it. But I am saying it would be commercially viable, and provide a valuable common ground for launching SF BRP settings. As for not having enough time to create our own setting backgrounds ... actually, most of the gamers I know spend more time "armchair-gaming" than "tabletop-gaming" these days. I haven't been able to get a game together in over a year, but I
have managed to co-produce a pretty extensive Traveller setting in that time.
*Everybody knows a BRP rulebook needs a companion
