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When I wrote this title I intended it be about science fictional predictions coming true in my lifetime, and especially what might still happen before I die.
I like the comparison with baroque art but I noticed a number of points that appeared to me to be counter-factual or which missed the point:
Science fiction’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last 35 years
Has it? It seems to me that SF's popularity peaked decades ago (at least print SF and who cares about that other stuff?) and it's been hard pressed to maintain its market share since then.
explaining how to build a computer on Mars without help from Earth would be magical.
On the whole his comments about space colonization are OK but this seems to me to veer into self-sufficient colonies territory, which I believe sets the bar high enough to make the task impossible. There are no highly advanced self-sufficient cities on Earth. Why would we expect cities in space to be more closed (and why the heck are we trying to create hermit kingdoms in space anyway?). In the near future, any base on Mars will have to accept that while some basic necessities can be produced locally, the complex technical stuff will have to be imported at great cost from Earth.
His later comment confirms that he is talking about total self-sufficiency: Until men and women colonize the Moon and Mars and we learn how to build with materials found in outer space and create a new economy that has no dependency on Earth, we won’t be able to think about traveling further than Mars.
Where does this idea come from?
The people of the Earth will not let scientists develop nuclear rockets anywhere near our home world.
I take it the author is American. Other nations have different comfort levels with nuclear technology than Americans do.
We could use an alien like Klaatu or Karellen to knock some sense into us, but I don’t think that will happen.
Gort threatened the human race with extinction if it didn't toe the line. Karellen actually delivered it. I am thinking our current slow, incremental improvements are more effective method for achieving an acceptable level of generalized human contentment than total extermination is (Note that I have read at least one novel in the recent past that took the opposite point of view).
I think he's wrong about cloning by 2050. I don't expect it will be widely used but someone somewhere will have done it just to show that it can be done.
Nicked from Mike Brotherton
I like the comparison with baroque art but I noticed a number of points that appeared to me to be counter-factual or which missed the point:
Science fiction’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last 35 years
Has it? It seems to me that SF's popularity peaked decades ago (at least print SF and who cares about that other stuff?) and it's been hard pressed to maintain its market share since then.
explaining how to build a computer on Mars without help from Earth would be magical.
On the whole his comments about space colonization are OK but this seems to me to veer into self-sufficient colonies territory, which I believe sets the bar high enough to make the task impossible. There are no highly advanced self-sufficient cities on Earth. Why would we expect cities in space to be more closed (and why the heck are we trying to create hermit kingdoms in space anyway?). In the near future, any base on Mars will have to accept that while some basic necessities can be produced locally, the complex technical stuff will have to be imported at great cost from Earth.
His later comment confirms that he is talking about total self-sufficiency: Until men and women colonize the Moon and Mars and we learn how to build with materials found in outer space and create a new economy that has no dependency on Earth, we won’t be able to think about traveling further than Mars.
Where does this idea come from?
The people of the Earth will not let scientists develop nuclear rockets anywhere near our home world.
I take it the author is American. Other nations have different comfort levels with nuclear technology than Americans do.
We could use an alien like Klaatu or Karellen to knock some sense into us, but I don’t think that will happen.
Gort threatened the human race with extinction if it didn't toe the line. Karellen actually delivered it. I am thinking our current slow, incremental improvements are more effective method for achieving an acceptable level of generalized human contentment than total extermination is (Note that I have read at least one novel in the recent past that took the opposite point of view).
I think he's wrong about cloning by 2050. I don't expect it will be widely used but someone somewhere will have done it just to show that it can be done.
Nicked from Mike Brotherton
