As we approach the anniversary in October next year, there will be a lot of perspective, and prospective pieces like this one by (fellow) baby boomer Keith Cowing. I'll no doubt do one or two of my own.

While I agree that NASA is tragically unhip, I don't think "climate change denial" matters except to people who can say that phrase with a straight face.

Count me in as well.

Here's one thought that's been running through my mind. Next April is the 40th anniversary of the premier of 2001. The film was a huge hit in San Francisco in the late 60s, especially among certain parts of the Flower Child set. 2001 -- at least the part in the middle -- was supposed to be what we would be doing in space in the late 90s, early 21st century.

Our probes to Jupiter and beyond have been small robots, not a giant nuclear powered space ship with five people on board. We do not have a Moon base. We do not have regularly scheduled passenger ships flying to the Moon. While we have a space station, it is a far cry from what the film depicted. While NASA claimed the shuttle would give us routine access to space, like the Pan Am shuttle did in the film, it would a real stretch, to put it mildly, to say our shuttle is anything like the 2001 shuttle.

Now let's look at some other aspects of our society. Toyota now sells more vehicles than General Motors. Lincoln sells a luxury, high end pickup truck. IBM has sold part of its computer business to a Chinese company. IBM no longer dominates the computer industry.

Socially the War on Drugs continues unabated. Women have flooded the workforce -- but the work week has lengthened, not shortened.

If you dropped into the Haight Ashbury back in 1968 and said all those things would be true in 40 years, people would have told you to ease up on the acid and go talk to nice people down at the free clinic -- especially when they heard the bit about the Lincoln luxury, high end pickup truck.

Chuck,

You forgot about the peaceful end of the USSR while a Republican was in the White House... oh wait, that would be Haight Ashbury circa 1988.

I think those who blame NASA for not meeting the goals of Hollywood are bound to be disappointed about many things.

In my opinion though, NASA has gone too far away from its NACA roots. Where is the development of technology that benefits commercial spaceflight? It is still happening, but at a much smaller scale. NASA shouldn't be proud of inventing Tang, Velcro, and high speed computers (please no debate on whether these are fair claims, it's not the point). Rather NASA should be proud at inventing hybrid engines, working scramjets, and cheaper/smaller/practical reusuable spacecraft. Invent these things so commercial interests can build successful systems around them. Some at NASA can claim partial participation and success in such endeavors, but in reality, these acheivable technologies were not fully realized.

Now, private commercial endeavors are filling in this void. I'm glad they are, but such that they are, they bring into question whether NASA is really worth the small benefit. For now, NASA can weather this criticism at 50 years, but in 55 years, NASA won't be flying humans to space and they might be several years away from doing it again. And oh yeah, they'll have a lot of astronauts on the payroll, who will be competing for a seat to orbit with paying civilian customers.

NASA's getting old and senile. Time to put it in a home.

Leland,

I mentioned 2001 because -- at least the middle part of the film -- was a well researched, thoughtful look by quite a few people at where we would be by the late 90s, early 21st century. It wasn't some sort of Hollywood fantasy.

Kubrick was an exceptionally thoughtful man -- especially for Hollywood. His pictures were deep looks at a variety of things, not fluff like most of Hollywood films.

The fact that the 21st Century doesn't come close to what 2001 predicted, at least with regard to space, is an interesting set of data points.