I love old sci-fi
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I think that global war with machines and death of most of the population is quite a pessimistic take on the future.
did you not watch the finale?
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did you not watch the finale?
I don't know what you're getting at. It was a show about war. It was grim. It's not a optimistic take on the future. I don't care if it had happy ending or if technically it was set in the past.
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People are confusing optimism with naiveté. The old sci-fi assumed the rate of progress with be constant or even accelerate. They saw people got to space and moon in what? 20 years? So they thought we will get to Mars by the end of century and beyond our solar system some time after that. They didn't predict the end of Cold War and massive disinvestment from space exploration. But there were plenty of pessimistic takes on the future. In Bladerunner all the animals are dead, in Alien everything is run by evil corporations, in Battlestar Galactica everyone dies, in Star Wars whole worlds are destroyed, apocalyptic visions are common. Getting the dates wrong is not the same as being optimistic.
Old sci-fi assumed progress in the physical world, of endless progress in speed or materials.
Instead we got near endless progress in the processing of information while we live in houses made of trees, drive cars on rubber tires, and eat animals. Much like before. Sure, we have jets, but even they work pretty much the same way as 50 years ago. Incremental progress, sure, but no warp drive, eh?
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I used to wonder if I would ever walk on the moon or Mars during my lifetime when I was a kid. I miss that
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I don't know what you're getting at. It was a show about war. It was grim. It's not a optimistic take on the future. I don't care if it had happy ending or if technically it was set in the past.
wrote last edited by [email protected]spoiler alert
it's not that it's an optimistic take on the future, it's that it's not a take on the future at all.
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Lost in space took place in 1999!
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as a kid i was so convinced, near the end of 90s i thought "maybe there are huge advancements made but they're saving it for the year 2000 so it'll be bombastic like people have expected."
instead we got fucking segway lol
If there is anything about the 90s that I always found fun is just how everyone and everything anticipated the year 2000.
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spoiler alert
it's not that it's an optimistic take on the future, it's that it's not a take on the future at all.
It is. It's about people fighting a war in space. Saying that it happened "long time ago" in a different galaxy or in alternative reality doesn't make it a historical drama.
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Me too. My dream home would be inspired by Forbidden Planet
idk how rich you are
But I will need to live this life in my dreams at night for the rest of my life -
People are confusing optimism with naiveté. The old sci-fi assumed the rate of progress with be constant or even accelerate. They saw people got to space and moon in what? 20 years? So they thought we will get to Mars by the end of century and beyond our solar system some time after that. They didn't predict the end of Cold War and massive disinvestment from space exploration. But there were plenty of pessimistic takes on the future. In Bladerunner all the animals are dead, in Alien everything is run by evil corporations, in Battlestar Galactica everyone dies, in Star Wars whole worlds are destroyed, apocalyptic visions are common. Getting the dates wrong is not the same as being optimistic.
The rapid progress and then stalling is not caused by lack of investment, it's the harsh reality of physics.
We cracked how to have machines fly like birds and then it's low hanging fruit to achieve amazing things in atmosphere.
While exploring that, rocketry makes nearby space possible, and the moon is "right there".
But then things are exponentially farther away, and many of them bigger gravity wells, making the trips too long and difficult to make two way trips.
In a very very short time we got heavier than air flight, rocketry, fission, mass production, and all sorts of robotics and computing. But reach breakthrough has a point where we scratch our heads trying to do better. A ton has been spent and will continue to be spent trying to crack controlled fusion. Someone that lived through us managing to split an atom for the first time to fairly widespread deployment naturally assumed fusion would be next and maybe not too long after something that would extract energy directly according to Einstein's most famous formula.
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idk how rich you are
But I will need to live this life in my dreams at night for the rest of my lifeYeah, that's why it's just my dream home. But if I could design and furnish a home that is what it would look like
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The rapid progress and then stalling is not caused by lack of investment, it's the harsh reality of physics.
We cracked how to have machines fly like birds and then it's low hanging fruit to achieve amazing things in atmosphere.
While exploring that, rocketry makes nearby space possible, and the moon is "right there".
But then things are exponentially farther away, and many of them bigger gravity wells, making the trips too long and difficult to make two way trips.
In a very very short time we got heavier than air flight, rocketry, fission, mass production, and all sorts of robotics and computing. But reach breakthrough has a point where we scratch our heads trying to do better. A ton has been spent and will continue to be spent trying to crack controlled fusion. Someone that lived through us managing to split an atom for the first time to fairly widespread deployment naturally assumed fusion would be next and maybe not too long after something that would extract energy directly according to Einstein's most famous formula.
Plenty of things could have been done with proper investment even before going to Mars. Reusable rockets, cheaper launch systems, more flights to the moon, moon bases, space stations. Yes, Mars is difficult but it would be easier with well established presence in the orbit and on the moon. All of this happened way too late (or never) because no one wanted to invest in it.
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People are confusing optimism with naiveté. The old sci-fi assumed the rate of progress with be constant or even accelerate. They saw people got to space and moon in what? 20 years? So they thought we will get to Mars by the end of century and beyond our solar system some time after that. They didn't predict the end of Cold War and massive disinvestment from space exploration. But there were plenty of pessimistic takes on the future. In Bladerunner all the animals are dead, in Alien everything is run by evil corporations, in Battlestar Galactica everyone dies, in Star Wars whole worlds are destroyed, apocalyptic visions are common. Getting the dates wrong is not the same as being optimistic.
Cyberpunk like Blade Runner was a direct response to the optimism of the golden age of SF. They said there wasn't enough sin in those stories. So they had protagonists who were heavy drug users taking out assassination contracts on big corpo CEOs and banging a prostitute in a back alley after they're done. They have high technology compared to the time it was written, but it doesn't help the common people make their lives any better. The Earth is a polluted wasteland, and the cities are stuffed full of people with trash all over the place.
Guess which approach is closer to what actually happened?
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The rapid progress and then stalling is not caused by lack of investment, it's the harsh reality of physics.
We cracked how to have machines fly like birds and then it's low hanging fruit to achieve amazing things in atmosphere.
While exploring that, rocketry makes nearby space possible, and the moon is "right there".
But then things are exponentially farther away, and many of them bigger gravity wells, making the trips too long and difficult to make two way trips.
In a very very short time we got heavier than air flight, rocketry, fission, mass production, and all sorts of robotics and computing. But reach breakthrough has a point where we scratch our heads trying to do better. A ton has been spent and will continue to be spent trying to crack controlled fusion. Someone that lived through us managing to split an atom for the first time to fairly widespread deployment naturally assumed fusion would be next and maybe not too long after something that would extract energy directly according to Einstein's most famous formula.
Nuclear rockets could have easily made space relatively cheap. The tech was actively tested by NASA, and it worked pretty well. Nixon canceled that program and saddled NASA with a mandate for a Shuttle without the proper funding.
The USSR's manned program, OTOH, was built mostly to hit a number of firsts (first dog in space, first man in space, first woman in space, first space walk, etc.), but do it as quickly as possible. This resulted in a series of "get it done right the fuck now" decisions. NASA did it the slow way, with each technical advancement building on the last, which is better in the long run (if you fund it, mind you). Russia did enough to build Soyuz and then ran that for decades.
The tech did not hit physical limits. The two major approaches to space flight hit different bureaucratic limits first.
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I saw Back to the Future 2 last night.
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People are confusing optimism with naiveté. The old sci-fi assumed the rate of progress with be constant or even accelerate. They saw people got to space and moon in what? 20 years? So they thought we will get to Mars by the end of century and beyond our solar system some time after that. They didn't predict the end of Cold War and massive disinvestment from space exploration. But there were plenty of pessimistic takes on the future. In Bladerunner all the animals are dead, in Alien everything is run by evil corporations, in Battlestar Galactica everyone dies, in Star Wars whole worlds are destroyed, apocalyptic visions are common. Getting the dates wrong is not the same as being optimistic.
Alien nailed it
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The rapid progress and then stalling is not caused by lack of investment, it's the harsh reality of physics.
We cracked how to have machines fly like birds and then it's low hanging fruit to achieve amazing things in atmosphere.
While exploring that, rocketry makes nearby space possible, and the moon is "right there".
But then things are exponentially farther away, and many of them bigger gravity wells, making the trips too long and difficult to make two way trips.
In a very very short time we got heavier than air flight, rocketry, fission, mass production, and all sorts of robotics and computing. But reach breakthrough has a point where we scratch our heads trying to do better. A ton has been spent and will continue to be spent trying to crack controlled fusion. Someone that lived through us managing to split an atom for the first time to fairly widespread deployment naturally assumed fusion would be next and maybe not too long after something that would extract energy directly according to Einstein's most famous formula.
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying, that we’d already be exploring Andromeda or something by now. We haven’t even sent a crewed mission to the Moon, let alone Mars.
There has been no investment in space travel or any attempt to establish a research outpost on the moon. Nor a research station above the atmosphere on Venus. Nothing.
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If there is anything about the 90s that I always found fun is just how everyone and everything anticipated the year 2000.
The night is 2000. I am walking around central london with my dad and his friends, drinking champagne from a bottle despite being underage. We are not near the place we are meant to be to see the fireworks display. The sky fills with coloured lights as giant fireworks are being let off and illuminating the entire heavens with one artificial colour at a time.
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Nuclear rockets could have easily made space relatively cheap. The tech was actively tested by NASA, and it worked pretty well. Nixon canceled that program and saddled NASA with a mandate for a Shuttle without the proper funding.
The USSR's manned program, OTOH, was built mostly to hit a number of firsts (first dog in space, first man in space, first woman in space, first space walk, etc.), but do it as quickly as possible. This resulted in a series of "get it done right the fuck now" decisions. NASA did it the slow way, with each technical advancement building on the last, which is better in the long run (if you fund it, mind you). Russia did enough to build Soyuz and then ran that for decades.
The tech did not hit physical limits. The two major approaches to space flight hit different bureaucratic limits first.
I think repeatedly hitting the moon would have had the world shrugging, none of the sci fi was 'hey we made it to the moon and... stayed there'.
A mission to the moon was a little under 2 weeks, a similar mission to mars would be well over two years. Sure, we could, but even the most adventurous human adventures in history have been measured in months, we've never displayed the will to commit to years for what would be a token mission.
Yes, the tech could be improved with more investment, but the sci-fi results of even settling mars is just unreasonably far out.
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It is. It's about people fighting a war in space. Saying that it happened "long time ago" in a different galaxy or in alternative reality doesn't make it a historical drama.
dude i specifically said "technically does not belong" as a wink for people who know and you took it so seriously that i regret that i replied at all. i even said star wars is supposed to be a long time ago and you still kept going
