Cognitive Dissonance. . . IN SPAAAACE!

My father-in-law has quite the collection of books. One the things I’ve recently turned up is the somewhat excellent Star Trek - Spaceflight Chronology that was published in 1980. Sternbach did the illustrations, so there’s some top-notch Trek-style starship stuff in here, and it’s at least entertaining. But what really got to me was the sheer level of divergence from what the book was predicting (and yes, I realize it’s Star Trek) and where we’re actually at in terms of spaceflight development. This might just be the “where’s my flying car” argument of the current decade.

It’s just amazing. I’ve found a decent online version that you can peruse, but I’ve simply got to list some of the highlights.

• 1983 - Space Telescope orbited.
• 1991 - We get samples of rock from Mars returned by a probe, and we have Cassini-Huygens a lot sooner than in reality.
• 1992 - the Space Shuttle program finishes its operational run.
• 1994 - Multinational manned missions to the moon.
• 1998 - Moonbase established.
• 1999 - Asteroid landing mission completed.
• 2001 - Mercury lander mission, complete with sample returns.
• 2004 - Mass drivers in use to return asteroid material to Earth orbit.
• 2005 - First baby born on Moon.

I mean, look at that - by 2005 we should be having babies on the Moon, and in 1980 someone was optimistic enough to put it on paper. I don’t know how I feel about the current state of the space program. . . wait, that’s a lie; I think it sucks hard enough to deflate a moonwalk ride at the county fair. But I can’t help but think we should be a little further along than we are right now.