Tuesday, June 18, 2013

18 June 2013

Birthday
Roger Ebert b. 1942 died 4 April 2013

As I wrote when he died earlier this year, Mr. Ebert started his writing career with a self-published fanzine called Stymie and wrote several published science fiction stories.

Movies released
Toy Story 3 released, 2010 
Prediction: 1989: First manned mission to Pluto ends in disaster, both crew members commit suicide by exposure.

Predictor: Larry Niven in Wait It Out, published in 1968

Reality: Dude, nobody but nobody is going to Pluto. It’s not even a planet anymore.

As I have written before, Hard SF writers love space exploration beyond all reason. They hoped the space race would be something like the era when men like Byrd and Scott and Amundsen made their names exploring the North and South poles, expeditions done much more for glory and scientific advancement rather than profit. The problem with that comparison is the difference in cost and time and danger. We are many technological advances away from making even a moon base make sense and interplanetary travel is many orders of magnitude tougher.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 
 
It's Wednesday and John Elfreth Watkins predicts the world of take-out food that will be enjoyed by the citizens of... the year 2000!


Join me then... IN THE FUTURE! 

2 comments:

  1. you're a space-travel-party-pooper, Prof. How dare you bring reality into speculative fiction! Harlan Ellison would like a WORD with you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I plead guilty with an excuse. I have my favorite fun idea of giant women and science has done all it can to poop that party as well.

      If you can't spread a little bitter disappointment, what good is life?

      Delete

Traveler! Have you news... FROM THE FUTURE?