Yesteryear’s Science Fiction

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The astronauts are loading supplies into the vehicle that will leave the space station and go to Earth. I had fantasies about this kind of thing as a child. I suppose I should have dreamed about the day they cure all cancers, end poverty, stop making war, but those seemed too realistic (in all honest, thought we would have done it by now). But space travel to anywhere, and space stations in orbit, and filling out an application to be an astronaut?

For those of us who dream that humanity will not only survive but come out better in the long run, reality can be sobering. But looking back at history, we’ve made progress, at least in the modern world. We no longer burn witches at the stake, and there’s probably enough food for everyone if we can just overcome the governments and get it there when it’s needed. We can control reproduction, and we have antibiotics (at least we do for a little while longer). Small Pox is extinct. So are Guinea worms. But then, a lot of species have gone extinct for utterly stupid reasons; rhino horns and ivory come to mind.

I think now, what can be so astounding, is that we have The Internet, and people have the world’s knowledge at their fingertips, and ignore it. We went to the moon, and back. We’ve created and sent robots to all the other planets we share our sun with. If that can be done on the puny budget our world commits to science (oh, about 3% compared to 50% for the war machine), then imagine our future if the budgets were well balanced and people valued the science brought to us by space programs. See, now we’re back to dreaming about touching those stars!