Requiem for the Once-Imagined Future

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The underwhelming Discovery mission has the Wall Street Journal Online's Real Time columnists lamenting the space program's failure to realize the sort of intergalactic exploration they once imagined as kids through the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein. Considering the Viking landers were digging around Martain soil back in 1976, 'we figured the place would be necklaced with orbiters and cris-crossed by rovers by now. Maybe there'd even be astronauts (or cosmonauts or taikonauts) tracing the courses of unimaginably ancient rivers.' Instead, we get a mission whose highlights were 'a) it came back; and b) an astronaut pulled bits of cloth out from between tiles.' At this rate, the columnists fear the innovations of the future won't be much more exciting: 'Maybe Real Time 2030 will fret about how our college kids do little more than steal full-res holographic porn when they're not getting their financial identities stolen by cyber-jihadists eager to build more backpack nukes.'"

Comments

forget space

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to talk about the short commings of the predicted future then forget space where is my ROCKET CAR!

full-res you say?

[vertinox]

Maybe Real Time 2030 will fret about how our college kids do little more than steal full-res holographic porn

Bah! If it doesn't have full tactile neural input, then I'm not interested.

There is hope!

[Ken Hall]

I, for one, am heartened by how much the shuttle has come to resemble the Millenium Falcon. At least in the reliability department.

Don't Forget C

[MrCopilot]

Instead, we get a mission whose highlights were 'a) it came back; and b) an astronaut pulled bits of cloth out from between tiles.

Lest we forget c.)Took out the trash.

Yes but...

[ravenspear]

Tanks for example are quite protected against nukes, and our vastly superior engineered bodies will not have much problems with nukes unless one goes off right by you (get better implanted radar!).

I can think of a few downsides to having a metal, indestructable body. For example, the sex probably wouldn't be as good.

Re:Yes but...

[xs650]

Au Contraire, the sparks would fly.

Re:As Gregory Benford's Corollary Says:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

Re:Far greater things lie ahead

[Digital Vomit]

And I bet you any money that, when we reach this stage, we still won't have any damned flying cars!

Re:The problem is power

[Blakey Rat]

We need to invent that glowy crap on the back of every spaceship on TV and in the movies. The Millenium Falcon had no trouble landing and taking off from a planet without a fuel tank... you just turn on the glowy crap, and bam you're there. The starship Enterprise just makes the glowy crap flash really bright, and they're going faster than light itself! Even the Stargate uses glowy crap technology to bridge planets.

We just need to invent that glowy crap and everything else will fall into place.

Re:I'll take the asteroid

[Pfhorrest]

...the mentality that the only careers worth having are those of criminal/thug, celebrity/whore, or lawyer/lobbyist/politician.

So you're saying there's basically just one commonly desirable job in today's market? ;-)