As a kid, I watched Space 1999 and read both 2001 and 2010. When I started professionally writing game scenarios in the early 1990s, I set some adventures on the moon and envisioned that we would have a base there by 2010.
When 1999 arrived, it was obvious that a moon base was not going to happen. When the world failed to end in 2001, it was also obvious that nothing like the Discovery would be built. In 2010, there was no real hope for a moon base. Now that 2011 is here, we won’t even have the space shuttles in operation anymore. In short, if Space 2011 were a show, its lameness would be intergalactic in scope. Naturally, I am only a bit shamed that some of my predictions in the 1990s were so wrong.
Naturally, I am inclined to wonder why there has been so little progress in regards to space. One obvious answer is that as a species we seem obsessed with fighting each other and wasting our time, lives and resources on petty dominance games and absurd conflicts over dirt, oil, and make-believe. As such, rather than expanding into space, we have been working very hard to make this world into a bloody nightmare. This seems unlikely to change.
Second, while some corporations see space as potentially profitably (there is, after all, an entire universe out there), most prefer to stick with business here on earth. Selling people chips, beer, cars, and TVs tends to be more profitable than doing things with space (other than communication satellites and such, of course). However, there are some companies who do see space as a potential money maker, if only for tourism and satellites. Of course, this does not do a great deal in terms of allowing us to become a space-faring species, rather than being a bunch of pants wearing monkeys squatting on a ball of dirt and water.
Third, technology is a serious limiting factor. While we now have hand held devices (for watching porn and being narcissists) that are vastly more powerful than the computers used in early space flight, the technology for lunching vehicles and moving them through space has advanced very little. There has been little incentive to improve things and, of course, the laws of physics certainly impose some serious limits. In fact, it might be the case that expansion into space is actually physically impossible. That is, maybe a ship simply cannot be built that could actually reach another star. As such, perhaps we are doomed to remain here until extinction puts an end to us, maybe in the form of a big rock smacking into our ball of dirt and water.
Unfortunately, there is a very good reason for WHY NASA shut down the SpaceTruck Program: The sapce weapons (directed energy) platform has now been completed. During the mid-1980’s, I worked for Emery Air Freight in El Paso, Texas, and I would make deliveries each weekday to The US Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, located between Las Cruces and Alamogordo, New Mexico, very near Los Alamos, which is docated deep within the Range in a very high security area. I would also make deliveries every few days to the HELTSF facility, which was a very high security base located deep within the Range itself. The original HELTSF, like the SpaceTruck closed up shop when their work was completed. But a new site was built on the Range in 2009 because The High Energy Laser Test Site Facility had by then produced a working directed energy weapon small enough to operate effectively and efficiently, which took many years to perfect. The old shot-down-a-missile-with-a-missile StarWars concept never worked and was easily abandoned in favor of the new speed-of-light weapon HELSTF had by 2009 perfected, even field testing the portable weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan. SpaceWars had taken the place of StarWars.
See: HELSTF – http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/HELSTF_High_Energy_Laser_Systems_Test_Facility.html
See: USAF SPACECOM – http://www.afspc.af.mil/
See: US NAVY shoot down drone aircraft using directed energy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTpP412fM8U
See: US Military Aerospace directed energy weapons – http://www.militaryaerospace.com/index/display/article-display/0827194684/articles/military-aerospace-electronics/exclusive-content/2010/5/laser-weapons_development.html
Just bought a copy of Haldeman’s, “Forever War”, at the discount/ used store yesterday. Hadn’t read it since high school. That takes place in 1997; yet check out the tech avaiable there. Collapsar jump ships, powered armor, tachyon grenades.
People were far too zealous when it came to their hopes for technology that would mimic Star Trek in less than 100 years after we landed on the moon. Traveller 2300 did a much better job in estimating tech advances than did almost any other game, book, or movie. Also, several sci-fi authors use generation ships to get people off the earth. I suspect that any chance we have of reaching another star will involve quantum mechanics, though much of that theory is under attack.
On the other hand, we’ve advanced in many areas that most people don’t even know about. For instance, in Vietnam, a serviceman wounded had about a 24% chance of dying. In Afghanistan, only 10%. Fielld medical care improved greatly in a small amount of time, even after Desert Storm.
As far as space travel goes, we haven’t even mastered our current environment yet. There’s a lot more “juice for the squeeze” right here on earth.
Does “mastering our current environment” entail destroying it?
It involves maximising its potential.
Every animal destroy the environment to some extent.
But I’m not going back to living in caves. You?
“But I’m not going back to living in caves. You?”
Our generation won’t, but after mindlessly “maximizing our potential” ,generations in the future might not have a choice.
Perhaps we’ll successfully establish life on another planet before then.
Apparently there is no choice, then, huh? If progress in this world is to continue, “mastering” (destruction) the environment must continue. And there’s nothing our “master” civilization can do about it. . Thanks for opening my eyes! Until now I hadn’t realized how limited and stupid our civilization is. Makes me ashamed to be a member of the human race.
No caves for me. Very poor reception on my smartphone.
That does master it. All the way.
Fortunately, the book stands up very well, despite the over-estimation of progress. I did a paper a while ago for a conference called “When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday”, which addressed the problem of when science fiction becomes dated. I remember the conference very well, mainly because I had to tell an “expert” on science fiction about the movie Forbidden Planet.
My comment (above) is also a hyper-linked and downloadable document on Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/59670336/Unfortunately-The-reason-NASA-is-shutting-down-the-SpaceTruck-program-is-that-the-SpaceWeapons
Likewise, all three (3) of my book are hyper-linked and downloadable FREE on Scribd:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29378395/Broken-Government-A-Call-to-Action-and-Other-Essays
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50614610/Wake-up-from-your-nightmare-and-other-sociopolitical-essays-American-activist-political-theory-for-the-21st-century-Spring-2011
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18013481/Phenomenology-Theology-and-The-World-Perceived
We could go to Mars, but that would entail killing Granny because Medicare is running out of money.
“expansion into space is actually physically impossible”
It’s definitely harder than we once thought. I remember listening to Neil DeGrasse Tyson talk about how the ISS was also thought of as a test range for living in space. That’s proven much harder than we once thought. Rather than the “moon diseases” that we once thought the moon landing astronauts might contract, we instead have little tiny pebbles moving at super sonic speeds. Our ability to be self-contained in space seems very difficult at this time in applied materials. It would have been closer to impossible using 1980s technology though.
Maybe though, given some time, new materials, and reinvigoration in space travel, we could at least get back to the moon. I’d love to be able to look up at the moon through my telescope some night and pick out a small city sitting in near the vast seas of the moon. But I’m an optimist about this sort of thing.
As for quantum mechanics helping us move through space… I’d love to hear about how that one works.