No Tomorrow?

Space. 

Did we stop dreaming?

 If you were a child in the 60s and 70s, you were promised a bright future of jet-packs, flying cars, and space travel would be utterly commonplace. Why, everyone would vacation on the moon, it was a given. And why not? We would have space colonist terraforming on Mars and Venus as well as the far planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

We were promised.

THIS was our future.

As teenagers and young adults we watched cars become monotonous and uninspired. Houses were no longer trying to be the cutting-edge homes of tomorrow and cities grew uglier instead of the shining beacons of an enlightened society.

What happened? 

Cool Concept Cars For A Future That Never Happened

We Were Suppose To Take Off On The Highway Of Tomorrow

Everything was geared toward the future, outer space, convenience, luxury, and gorgeous lines on cars that looked like rocket ships.
Compare it what you're driving today.
And what do you think the next generation will be driving tomorrow? Oh wait, probably nothing because we're running out of oil. Our short-sighted society isn't concerned with that either.

 Neil deGrasse Tyson

"We stopped dreaming."

"Do you remember the 60s and 70s? You didn't have to go more than a week before there was an article in Life magazine - "The Home of tomorrow," "The City of Tomorrow," "Transportation of Tomorrow." All that ended in the 1970s, after we stopped going to the moon, it all ended. We stopped dreaming. And so I worry that decisions that Congress makes doesn't factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow's gone."

Space Was Our Playground

Vintage Playgrounds:  Compare these amazing playgrounds of the 60s and 70s to the lame playgrounds of today.   As children, we accepted our destiny in space as a given.  What do children today accept as a given?  

 

Rocket Slides

Does Your Playground Have A Rocket Slide?

How can children dream about tomorrow, about space travel, about the great beyond if we don't encourage them?  We are dooming our children to this planet; to over-population and diminished resources and, eventually, death because our sun is not going to shine forever and no planet is safe from the errant meteor or asteroid.

"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."
~Stephen Hawking

 Our Destiny Is In Space

We Have No Tomorrow Without Spaceflight Today

I want you to look at the saddest thing on the internet for a minute.

Spacefaring Nations

"The United States government temporarily ceased manned space missions in July, 2011 after STS-135."

 According to Wikipedia, The United States of America is no longer a space-faring nation.  We have to use Russia's rockets to get our astronauts into space, when they go.  And what happens when Russia won't or can't get American astronauts launched? 

I have two important reasons why we can't let this be our future:

• 1   Lewis and Clark
• 2   The Next 100 Years

Why Lewis and Clark Are Important To Our Tomorrow

We Have No Future In Stagnation

 We all remember Lewis and Clark. About 200 years ago, they opened up the West to colonization.

Think about that for a minute, 200 years ago all the land between the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean was empty. Aside from a few handfuls of American Indian tribes, there was nothing but vast open spaces.
Now visualize the thousands of people that live in that space today. And visualize again what it will look like in another 100 years. 200 years. Visualize the whole world in 200 years.

Are we willing to either curb world breeding or encourage eugenics for the old and sick--for the whole planet?
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
It's a fact that we will outgrow this world. We MUST expand to the stars.

 "We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountain, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."
~Winston Churchill

The Next 100 Years Are Critical; We May Not Make It

We Can Still Doom Ourselves 

There are three types of civilizations on The Kardashev Scale.

Type I: Uses all the energy that falls on its planet.

Type II: Uses the energy output of a star and its planets.

Type III: Uses the energy of an entire galaxy, the blackholes, stars, and planets in it.

What are we using for energy? We're using dead plants. We get all our energy from dead plants. We're Type 0.

How can we move forward if society stops believing in basic science and no longer strives for a presence in space?   Why do 1 in 4 Americans believe that the sun revolves around the earth?  How is that possible?  If we continue to allow our children to be uneducated, how can human civilization move forward?

 We May Become Type I In The Next 100 Years

Tomorrow's Destiny Is Today

Dr. Michio Kaku has hope for mankind.

Do you?

 No Tomorrow? Further Reading

Kardashev Scale

Wikipedia Article

Type I civilization: can we make it?

Forum discussion

Type 1, 2, & 3 Civilizations

Physics forum

http://www.angelfire.com/sd/occultic/civili.html

An excerpt from the book of Michio Kaku

Wikipedia of Michio Kaku

Who is this guy anyway?

"The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological - technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science."
~Stephen Hawking

Technology For The Future Begins Today

We Must Prepare For Tomorrow

 Our civilization cannot stay bound to one planet. We cannot stop our inevitable forward progress unless we destroy ourselves. If nothing else, the end of the world will come and our mankind will be snuffed out completely if we are completely earth-bound.

The end of the world is coming. It's a FACT:

Our Milky Way is on a collision course with Andromeda. They WILL collide in 3 billion years.
Our sun will die in 5 billion years.

In between that time, anything could happen.

 "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
~Carl Sagan

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."

~ Carl Sagan

Mankind's Future?

Growing up, we were surrounded by outer space. Space toys, sci-fi movies, science fiction paperbacks, science magazines, sci-fi art on our lunchboxes, our notebooks, and even our commercials.

What do we have today? Seen any space-related commercials lately? Know the names of any astronauts from the last 10 years? 20 years? We need to get back to that whole retro fascination with space and ditch the dark ages mentality about science that has become so trendy.

I hope the art here inspires you to consider the future.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die."
~Roy Batty in "Blade Runner"

 TAM Panel-Our Future in Space

Where do our astronomers and astrophysicists think we'll be tomorrow?

Watch this 1 hour video to find the answers to these important questions:

Do they have hope for mankind in space?
Are robots our future?
Are NASA's glory days over forever?
Did Bill Nye kill the ozone layer?
Are Europeans from another world?

TAM 2011 in Las Vegas

Phil Plait, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Pamela Gay, and Lawrence Krauss talk about our future in space.

Stephen Hawking: Colonize space, or else

In recent times, famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has become something of a hawk when it comes to human survival

"Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."

"It does seem slightly pitiful that so many of our great scientific and engineering minds are being wasted on creating fine new ways to pay for your shampoo with your iPhone, rather than on creating machines that can swiftly and safely transport humans to occupy the Planet Yog."

An empty NASA launch pad dreaming of Mars.

 "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
~ Albert Einstein

What Do You Think?

Is space travel over for the United States?
Can we become a Type I civilization?
Do you have space dreams?
Were you promised a flying car?
Have we reached the tipping point for Type 0?