I’m Still Waiting for the Future

My love of all things sci-fi was probably spawned by my early childhood obsession with The Jetsons and then catapulted into an obsession by the Alien quadrilogy and the work of H.R.Geiger.

I guess it didn’t help that at 12 years old my family moved from England to Houston, Texas, home of NASA. Over the course of the years, I have probably been to NASA about 10 times and would gladly, willingly, joyously go again if only I could find a couple of nerds to go with me. My favorite part? The giant pool where astronauts would practice working in a gravity-free environment (as seen in the classic film, Armageddon!)

When I was in New York, I loved visiting the Hayden Planetarium and hearing Sigourney Weaver narrate the big bang (I’m almost positive it was Sigourney Weaver but since I have Aliens on the brain, who really knows). All of these experiences I’ve had with sci-fi media have really ruined the modern world for me - I am incredibly disappointed with our current status in terms of technological development and space exploration.

I want my flying car that folds into a briefcase!

And then I see this today:

As one commenter called it: Galactic Pastoral. That sounds so pleasant!
Although I have a feeling that were intragalactic habitats created, they’d resemble more densely packed cities than sprawling suburban landscapes.

These images are concept art from NASA from the 1970s depicting gigantic tubes and spheres suspended in outer space that contain lush vegetaion and human habitation. The fact that this doesn’t exist is so overwhelmingly disappointing and sad to me. Imagine looking up and instead of seeing the sky you see OUTER SPACE. Woah.

Is it just me or were people in the past way more creative about the possibilites of space travel and inhabitation than we are nowadays? Perhaps it’s because we have already conquered so many seemingly impossible feats (i.e.: landing on the moon) or maybe the novelty of space travel wore off or maybe modern day sci-fi writers/filmmakers/artists feel like they can’t compete with the classics or maybe we have concluded it’s just not possible to do some of the things depicted or imagined in past sci-fi media.

But mostly I think humans have exchanged outward expanding for inward improvement. No that’s not true, not improvement. Distraction. Think where we could be by now if the effort begun in the 60’s hadn’t fizzled out, if technology had been focused on attempting to create these futures instead of the one where we have chatroulette and televisions in cars.

For a period of time as a child I really wanted to be an astronaut - I kept fantasizing about weightlessness and about being able to look out of the window and see the whole planet earth. That image, perpetuated by movies and news, of the earth as viewed through the tine little spaceship porthole has long since captivated my imagination. Unfortunately, in addition to being afraid of heights, I have a paralyzing fear of flying and I’m claustrophobic so really nothing about my personality would succeed in space.

Lately I can’t seem to stop thinking about outer space and the possibility of space travel, life in synthesized habitats or in other galaxies, flying space cars and the like. I hope I live to see the age where some of these things come to be. Now if you excuse me, I have to go watch The X-Files.

[images from io9]