Interesting. "By the time I was a grown-up we would be whizzing around in bullet trains and hypersonic jets,..."
I'm bothered more by not having bullet trains (in America) and hypersonic jets. If you compare getting 2 dozen people to Mars vs building futuristic cities, transportation, etc., I think humanity will benefit much more if we bring 7 billion people into the future.
Just imagine, for example, a kid in the slums of Rio studying online to earn her degree from a future version of Udacity, after which she finds a job in London so she jumps on a plane for the 2 hour flight. After a year, she buys an apartment 100 miles outside and commute 30 minutes every day to work by maglev. With hypersonic flight she can fly home for long weekends to visit her family...
In short, the point let's first invest in making our world smaller and educate more people so more people come online to help contribute in some meaningful way.
I didn't say we shouldn't explore space. Human flight is very expensive and when there are accidents, the process gets even slower. We should do things in the proper order. At some point later in the 21st century, going to Mars will be routine and hopefully when we go, we'll stay. In the meantime, let's start building the other part of the 21st century that's missing. NYC to Tokyo in 3 hours. Living in Paris and commuting on a morning train to London for work. Robots that build robots, which fly to all the planets in our solar system.
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Interesting. "By the time I was a grown-up we would be whizzing around in bullet trains and hypersonic jets,..."
I'm bothered more by not having bullet trains (in America) and hypersonic jets. If you compare getting 2 dozen people to Mars vs building futuristic cities, transportation, etc., I think humanity will benefit much more if we bring 7 billion people into the future.
Just imagine, for example, a kid in the slums of Rio studying online to earn her degree from a future version of Udacity, after which she finds a job in London so she jumps on a plane for the 2 hour flight. After a year, she buys an apartment 100 miles outside and commute 30 minutes every day to work by maglev. With hypersonic flight she can fly home for long weekends to visit her family...
In short, the point let's first invest in making our world smaller and educate more people so more people come online to help contribute in some meaningful way.
The later quote resonates more fully with me personally-
"There's no point having a great civilization if all we do is sit on our little rock and just survive."
You might find this article interesting - "Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa." [1] (HN discussion [2]).
[1] http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a...
[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563
I didn't say we shouldn't explore space. Human flight is very expensive and when there are accidents, the process gets even slower. We should do things in the proper order. At some point later in the 21st century, going to Mars will be routine and hopefully when we go, we'll stay. In the meantime, let's start building the other part of the 21st century that's missing. NYC to Tokyo in 3 hours. Living in Paris and commuting on a morning train to London for work. Robots that build robots, which fly to all the planets in our solar system.