I remember reading all these books when I was younger with colonies on the moon and flying cars and all that cool stuff. They all took place around 2000. It was so dissapointing when the 21st century rolled around and I realized we had NONE of that stuff. Not even the cool video phones from Back to the Future. (I know they're out there and some people have them, but they've been promising us they'd be household items back when the Jetsons were on TV.)

Though even if we did have colonies on the moon, I don't think I'd want to go. I wouldn't want to live somewhere where you couldn't go outside without a space suit.

Truth be told, I really think it's the heights that get me.

Your only in the 'air' for a short time so it's not really flying.

Fly into space? I would totally want to go, but I have a fear of flying that really makes me second guess it.

There were some pretty crazy ideas of the future, weren't there?


Any chance you'd take that flight? I know I would if I had the chance and the skills.

Citizen: My one beef with you might come into education spending, but I'm a teacher, so go fig.

TWG: True, I don't want gran in a flying Ford Taurus, but I was just using that example to illustrate how everyone thought the 21st century would be all shiny right from the get-go.

People can be so short sighted and small minded not seeing the bigger picture. They see that putting a man in space costs XBillion $/£ whatever and say why aren't we spending that on hospitals/schools/parks whatever. Little realising that our survival as a species in the long run depends on us getting of planet.
Oh well, what ya gonna do?

I'm a huge space nut. I'm very excited.


I hope we don't have flying cars. Do you want your grandma flying one of those things? Do you want to be the person to design the airspcae traffic ways? no thanks.

Yeah, I got a bit excited when I heard that the shuttle had been launched without a hitch.

My last roomate was a cool gal, but I remember one of the few arguements we ever had was over the valifity of space exploration. She called it, and I quote " a fucking waste", which actually made me lose respect for her a bit. I just think that it's so closed minded to not consider the advances and achievements the space program can attain. I mean, at this rate, we will use up Earth and all it's resources, and we will have to move off planet in order to keep the human race from becoming extinct. So instead of blowing billions of dollars on killing off a bunch of people over oil, we should be putting it towards making advances in interstellar travel, even making contact with alien life.

We're trapped in a world before later on!

On a more practical note, if we don't get of world our species is doomed, all our eggs are in one basket, never know when they'll get squashed...

I'm as jazzed as you are. The launch was spectacular and the camera on the external fuel tank was pretty gorram cool. Although a little cheesy, I dug the mission control guy saying, "continuing our quest to the Moon, Mars and beyond."