Are you a child of the late 20th Century? Remember all those promises? Once upon a time science fiction wasn’t just for unsociable geeks who would one day be earning at least ten times their jock predators, science fiction was a reality. Well, in a nice sort of way we have it. We are in the future. We have mobile phones, WiMax, iPods, GPS, iDicks (broadband linked unlimited sexual gratification (Poornn)), giant telescopes that scan distant and long dead galaxies, DNA and cloning capabilities to bring life back, robot dogs and wonderful cures for the human body, particularly life saving eeky operations for all those aging Baby Boomers who realistically should be dying off ABOUT NOW. But for all the greatness of technology, do you still feel ripped off?
I do. And I know why. Stick it to the man. Ask out aloud: Dude, where’s my Moon Base?
I was born in the mid 1970s. I don’t hark back to the most enterprising decades and throw my hands up and say clichés like, “But oh, the 60s were a real time of revolution” because every decade is a time of real revolution. Revolution is constantly in evolution but since mankind was sold the Space Dream (and paid a huge financial bill for it too) it seems, well, we’ve gone nowhere.
How is it possible? Who can we blame? Is it those bureaucrats in NASA? If only they’d pushed those pencils a bit harder and dreamt beyond the space shuttle (not really a space shuttle at all, why not just call it the Orbit Shuttle? I don’t remember it doing laps of the moon). Did the crumbling of the Berlin Wall signal an end to the Cold War’s push into space, and was it Mikhail Gorbachev, who by successful whining about Reagan’s Star Wars and the prospect of an arm’s race in space (perhaps because the USSR wouldn’t be able to keep it up?) and thus both of them initiating a reduction in nukes to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction, also inadvertently pulled humanity back from the next leg of space exploration. Oh dear. They say no one can hear the mud slinging in space, but we’ll never know. I have a theory, that if the Romans (yes the Romans) had stayed in power, they’d be there right now, dividing and conquering the closest stars about now. It makes sense – the middle ages (thanks Christianity) knocked off about 1,000 years of technological evolution. Well, it’s too late to go back in time and keep the Romans in power so they could continue their march of progress.
But there is hope, albeit slim, but it shows something amazing about humanity. Why did we ever trust the military to get us up and out there? Even people in the military will tell you that the label for units of ‘Military Intelligence’ is an oxymoron. Yet again, it’s up to free enterprise to get us into space.
Space Tourism is taking off. The Russians will haul you up for a handsome fee. The satellite industry is growing. There is demand for space, and not just because it’s a nice place to spy on your enemies from and drop nasty little bombs when diplomacy fails.
To my fellow dreamers, and to those sold the dream, we will get into space. Hold tight. And save up for that ticket. One day there will be a moon base. Sooner or later you’ll be able to buy a timeshare apartment there, with views to the Sea of Tranquillity.
