Give Me That Old-time Science

At this point, I can speak for all of us when I say that the predictions of science and literature from the past 50 years have let us down tremendously.

Okay, the moon landing worked out alright. But come on, smart-alecky folks at MIT, NASA and Issac Asimov's brain trust - where are all the cool things we were promised? No colonies on Mars, no eradication of disease, and, most importantly, no spaceships capable of light speed captained by William Shatner.

We shouldn't get all chipper about the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. If people in the 1960s could get to the Moon, why the hell are we languishing here on Earth today? Do you realize this is the same decade that brought us Gumby and Lawrence Welk?? Those people got to the Moon, yet we, 40 years later, cannot even leave Iraq. Slam dunk, 1960s.

I will give us this: we've got the creepy thing down pat. They barely had rock 'n roll back then - today, we have trumpet-playing robots that would weird out even HAL of 2001. But I guess we could always count on the Japanese for that.

oh, how far we've come.

If I could go back in time, I'd have some choice words for the people of 1969: "You better effin' enjoy this, because it's only going downhill from here. The space program may have gotten you to the place of man's dreams, but from here on out it'll only get you an endless orbital program that generates hilarity, pointlessness and diapered pilots. But don't worry, this will cost billions, too."

I'd probably tell them that everything else will be better, though. Especially late-night programming on PBS.

All the same, with the American psyche at a low matched only by the Herbert Hoover years, we could use a jump start. Better to resurrect our crushed dreams than a darn confusin' economy or dismal foreign policy. Afghanistan? Pfft. I don't see Afghanistan on a space map.