History, Space, Technology and Society

Top Ten Technology Predictions

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Lousy ones, that is. I think we may be able to add this one to the list:

The Crew Exploration Vehicle, the associated Crew Launch Vehicle, and later the Heavy Lift Vehicle, will be the 21st century space equivalent of our interstate highways. This is the core infrastructure that will enable us to travel from the surface of the Earth to the Moon, Mars, and the near-Earth asteroids.

This kind of space travel is utter bilge.

[Via Geek Press]

4 thoughts on “Top Ten Technology Predictions”

  1. 6. LETTERS WILL BE DELIVERED BY ROCKET

    ‘We stand on the threshold of rocket mail,’ said U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield in 1959.

    Is that a real prediction of rocket mail? or is it more of a prediction that advances are likely to lead to rocketry being as ubiquitous as the mail?

  2. > The Crew Exploration Vehicle, the associated
    > Crew Launch Vehicle, and later the Heavy
    > Lift Vehicle, will be the 21st century space
    > equivalent of our interstate highways.
    > This is the core infrastructure that will
    > enable us to travel from the surface of
    > the Earth to the Moon, Mars, and the
    > near-Earth asteroids.

    ::shudder::

    Yeah, right after the Air Force desides to replace the F-15s with P51 Mustangs!

  3. Ken Olson’s comment shouldn’t be on that list. He was quite right in 1977 — no one needed a personal computer at home. Furthermore, I think the case can be made that if you interpret “computer” the way he did then, a general-purpose Turing machine, he’s still right.

    Now, it turned out people did need fancy previewing WYSIWYG typewriters and typesetters, and e-mail clients, and Web browsers, and digital movie and music players. But as the recent surging popularity of specialized gadgets (iPhones, tiny laptops, iPods) would seem to prove, the most efficient way to deliver these applications to the consumer is not necessarily on top of a heavyweight general-purpose computing machine.

    At one time in the 80s one might have made a case for lots of servers, but the security risks involved have killed that model dead, and now everyone runs a service (e.g. small business, sharing photos with friends) on someone else’s big central server.

    Olson might turn out to be “wrong” only within a narrow date range, from roughly 1990 to 2010.

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