Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

It’s 2011 and NASA has no spacecrafts any more. It hitches a ride? On a Russian spaceship? From the 60’s?!? Wow!

NASA has just announced the purchase of 12 seats on Soyuz spacecrafts from 2014 to 2016.  For a mere £468M. 

Saddest thing I heard in a long while. I know, with all the pain and suffering in the world, you must be thinking I am the heartless bastard to feel so sad because a technology is dying. I’m not. I am sad because millions of dreams are dying with it. It may be my pampered western lifestyle, and maybe if I had nothing to eat I would feel rather different, but I doubt it. I am a dreamer. I think we all are. Without dreams, what are we?

All major space age technologies are dead. Or dying. OK, I’ll admit, no-fog ski goggles are going strong, but things which actually count, you know, things like Concorde, Moon Buggy, and Space Shuttle, are all in a museum. 

It makes me sad  because the history has become aspirational. I do not think this is natural state of affairs. I believe that future should be aspirational, and past nostalgic. 

We live in the world where the future is bleak, past better than present, and present is frantic. Frantic present in which we live does not allow us to deliberate, think, and make decisions at our own pace. We are forced to make decisions in a flash, and this makes us feel we loose control, and this makes us look into the future with hope, but that hope is gone. Future is scary now. Global Warming, Energy Crisis, Global Catastrophe, Sea Levels Rising, just to mention a few.

I think I can handle it. I understand that the future is unpredictable. My present is completely different from what I was promised: spaceships, lunch in a pill, jet packs... 

But how are my children going to handle it?

Recently, I had a revelation. It was quite an eye opener for me. When my son was born I was 36. Just a year younger than my father when I was born. Which implies that what 1933 is for me, 1970 is for my son. I know it is rather obvious, but looking at it from this angle really put things in perspective for me. 1933 for me is ancient past. So, I assume, 1970 is for my son.

When I take my son to the science museum, and show him the real Apollo capsule, and life-size model of the Lunar Module, I can see his eyes sparkle, and on the way home he will stare at the Moon with wonder and hope. And it pains me greatly. Because, some day soon he will realise that they are all older than I am. They do not represent the future he can aspire to. They represent ancient past. Past which seems greater than his future.

How will I explain this to him? How will I keep his dreams going?

Maybe I am completely wrong about it. Maybe I feel this way because I was disappointed. I never got the future I was promised. I never flew in a spaceship, I do not eat lunch in a pill, and I certainly do not own a jet pack (that last one is a real bummer).

Maybe he will be happier, because his future will be better than the horrors he is promised?  I certainly hope so.