I realized that fifty years from now, my youngest daughter will be at my present age, meaning I will not be there, but she and my grandchildren will be, inshallah!
Scientific American, January 2013 issue asked prophets of Technology what life would be like 50, 100, and 150 years from now. Reading it
right now is like traveling in time because, for certain, it will not be less
but probably more than what we can right now imagine. Prophets of technology
tend to be conservatively realistic in separating themselves from fiction writers, but when 007 talked to his watch some 45 years ago like a phone,
we smiled at it like in a pleasant dream. When pictures were added to the
fiction, like a live television on James Bond’s wrist, we laughed at it like too much fiction, and yet we live not only to see it happen but to have one in our pockets while children use it for internet gaming, a toy.
A week ago, I wrote about how photos my daughter took with her tablet back home in the Philippines were instantly uploaded to my Google-plus that I can see. Last night, I discovered something else. You probably know
about this, but I didn’t. On your Facebook page is a map that says where you live; at least, that was what I thought indicated in your profile. What is
your address? I was wrong. I always ignored that face on my Facebook until last night when I saw the map that said I was at the “Mall of Asia.” I said, “What?” I
realized that Nishreen had been to 9 different places since she received her
tablet 3 weeks ago, the last being at MOA :-) I have no idea if it is a function
of her tablet’s GPS or her Google map. Fiction…? Nah!
We see flying cars in science fiction movies that we now
think are pure fiction. We can’t imagine how it will be possible, but if you are young, you may actually ride in one, maybe even own it. Drones that the USA uses not only to spy but also murder enemies, with the consequent death of many innocents, will in the future turn into manned space vehicles (MSV) as well, although unmanned space vehicles (USV) will still be around getting even more sophisticated. Some
drones will be the size of your red blood cells that can circulate in your body
to spy on your organs and hunt and kill whatever makes you ill. Other
drones will be insect sizes, from mosquitoes to birds, that can spy and kill in
urban areas. The USA has 7,000 spy/killer drones with unknown numbers in many other
countries. If drones can fly 24 hours and carry heavy loads of bombs, why don't humans drive them; you don’t need a driver’s license :-) Drone technology is the next world-changing technology after the internet. Electrical engineers
should tread this path or be left behind by those who do.
What truly fascinates me is space travel. Again, 150 years from now for colonists to live and thrive on Mars is too conservative a time, but ah, journey to the stars…150 years it is. With big businesses and moneyed individuals investing in Mars’ future colonies, I may even live to see it happen, and when I see humankind walk on the surface of Mars, I will sail towards the sunset with
a smile on my face.
NLK
STARSHIP
HUMANITY
How future generations will make the voyage
from our earthly home to the planets and beyond—and what it means for our species
By Cameron M. Smith
SNIP:
If space colonization is to succeed in the long run, we must
consider biology and culture as carefully as engineering. Colonization cannot
be about rockets and robots alone—it will have to embrace bodies, people,
families, communities and cultures. We must begin to build an anthropology of
space colonization to grapple with the fuzzy, messy, dynamic and often
infuriating world of human bio-cultural adaptation. And we must plan this new
venture while remembering the clearest fact of all regarding living things:
they change through time, by evolution. Three main concepts shape current
thought about space colonization. First is the colonization of Mars. Widely
publicized by the peppery space engineer and president of the Mars Society, Robert
Zubrin, Martian colonies would be self sufficient, using local resources to
generate water and oxygen as well as to make construction materials. Next is
the concept of free-floating colonies—enormous habitats built from lunar or
asteroid metals. Popularized by physicist Gerard K. O’Neill in the 1970s, these
would house thousands of people, could rotate to provide an Earth-like gravity
(as beautifully envisioned in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey), and could either orbit Earth or hang motionless at so-called
Lagrangian points, spots where an object’s orbital motion balances the
gravitational pull of the sun, moon and Earth. Finally, we might also consider
the concept of the Space Ark, a giant craft carrying thousands of space
colonists on a one way, multigenerational voyage far from Earth. I have been
working with the nonprofit foundation Icarus Interstellar to design just such a
mission. Each of these approaches has its merits, and I think they are all
technologically inevitable. But we must never confuse space colonization with
the conquest of space. The world beyond ours is unimaginably vast; it will be
what it has always been. When humankind begins to make its home in space, it is
we who will change.
Dream. Imagine. That was what each and everyone of us did in the yesteryears. Now they are here. We live in them. With them. Who knows some of us may still enjoy this future dreams of the now...
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