'We Were First,' trumpeted a headline in the popular Izvestia daily. 'At 22:28 Moscow time on October 4, 1957, humanity entered a new space age. The Soviet Union sent the Earth's first artificial satellite into orbit.'Just yesterday I was marveling at the fact that I grew up with a great uncle who had a childhood with no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no telephone, and where he had a team of horses for his buggy and cutter (he never called it a sleigh) because there were no cars. Of course having a horse means you can drink whiskey all night and polka til dawn and as long as you can get up onto your horse, you will probably make it home alright. At least that's what he told me. And he died only four short years ago.
And here I am, having grown up entirely in the space age. Not only was I born post Sputnik, I was born post Apollo 11. I have lived my whole life with the knowledge that man can walk on the moon. My uncle Al lived from a time when horse power meant exactly that into a time when we had astronauts inhabiting an International Space Station. So why has about a third of my life passed by without us achieving even one orbital colony? As far as transportation goes, the most innovative we've been since my birth is the Segway. My uncle went from Percherons to a Ford Model A in that same amount of time. The same 747's that were flying around before I was born are still in service. What the fuck happened?Well, hurray for Russia and for Sputnik and for mankind for getting this far so fast. Now please, someone, kick this thing back into gear. How about a flying car?
2 comments:
"I'm trapped in a world before later on. Where's my hovercraft? Where's my jet pack? Where's my font of acquired wisdom that alludes me now? We're trapped in world before later on..."
-TMBG
If we, as a species, don't start working to get off this planet, and soon, we just may be screwed.
$20 says it's easier to terraform Mars than to terraform Earth. It's already got lots of terracotta, after all.
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