I was big into science fiction in my early years (before, for some absurd reason, I stopped enjoying fiction altogether and only read fact), and read more than a couple tomes like Battlefield Earth, L. Ron Hubbards massive tome that in some ways was both the most misunderstood and least well-read discussion of human ingenuity in the face of overwhelming technological underdogitude (Underdogitude is a trademarked phrase, TAE 2009).
I read and empathized with Stranger in a Strange Land, got excited about my own intelligence in Ender's Game, examined politics in Dune, skimmed through Starship Troopers (wondering how they could even name the movie after this!), mused over Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?, watched The Matrix, and Star Wars, and in general imbibed a large collection of futurescapes all colorful and filled with humans traveling the stars with reckless aplomb. Not to mention I watched every single episode of Star Trek: TNG, DS9, and most of Voyager.
But for some reason, in spite all that, fantasy novels attracted me more. I read Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms, Tolkien, the Wheel of Time, Terry Goodkind's series, and was an expert on anyone with the last name "Rahl" or "Shannara." I think Megan McCardle may have nailed down the reason:
Four years before I was born, man walked on the moon for the first time, the most magnificent single feat our little tribe of East African Plains Apes has ever managed. Now we don't even do that. What happened to the dream? Government mismanagement, yes, but something more than that, too, some failure of imagination and will.
Perhaps what I experienced, as a kid in the 80's, was the subconscious disappointment that all the science fiction books I was reading were a lost cause. All the great imaginings of the authors amounted to nothing but wasted dreams, nothing but a swan song for human interstellar progress. Perhaps the reason fantasy was so much more appealing was because I knew that dragons didn't exist, and therefore couldn't suffer the disappointment of having the Ordinary Wizarding Levels tests canceled due to budget rearrangement. I knew, deep down, that fantasy worlds would never be and had never been, so for me they truly were an escape.
On the other hand, science fiction novels usually touched on real life advanced physics, or existing futuristic technology taken to the nth degree. Science fiction, it seems, is a fantasy world built on future hopes for humanity. But as I grew up, watching the shuttle thunder into space, then return, never really making progress, as I watched coverage of the SkyLab and MIR dropping into the ocean in burning fragments, I realized we are (save for a 9 year blip in the 60's), no closer to space than we ever were.
One thing is certain to me: it's not about the money. $600 million toilets could just as easily be built for $100,000 if we really tried. The issue is that no one really, really wants to explore the stars. If we explore them, they argue, we may lose ourselves in them.
Space exploration has become a pet issue like global warming legislation. Everyone is "for it" but they'd rather America spent the money and time on space after they are done with their term in office. Exploring the stars, renewed interest in the moon, increased funding for NASA, these are perennial promises from Presidential candidates, and are perennially postponed or tossed into a quagmire of funding issues and red tape.
The last problem is the "private sector." Some argue that private exploration of space will surpass government efforts. Unfortunately, I think this prophecy will absolutely come true. Because private efforts to reach space exist, it puts the government off the hook to do so, and so NASA really loses a lot of pressure to progress. And suddenly we lose the impetus of the largest organization in the world to reach deep space. Space goes from a frontier to a tourist attraction.
It disappoints me that I think this but the following is probably true: humans will not reach another planet unless they have destroyed this one. I'm sorry, but it's probably true. Unless significant pressure is put on us, like, say, something cataclysmic happened and Earth had 8 years left before the atmosphere would dissolve and all life on the planet would cease, I really never see us branching out. Obviously the epic collapse of life on Earth is not what I desire. But neither is space exploration at the speed of a dead snail (and at the cost of billions).
When I was a kid my dad told me "I bet we go to Mars soon. They'll probably need a bioengineer on Mars. You should keep your eye on that." What a lunatic he seems now, as the first humans are not scheduled to go near Mars until I am well into retirement. A colony there...well let's be realistic; probably not in my daughter's lifetime.
That makes me incredibly sad.
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