We've decommissioned our fleet of Space Shuttles and now have to hitch rides on Russian Federation Soyuz ships to get off the planet. The Untied States seems to be effectively out of the space
exploration business.
No moon bases. No mission to mars.
Well, when I was a kid all of the above was
possible and clearly on schedule to occur by around 1985 (at the very
least by 2001).
Growing up, I watched Alan Shepard and
John Glenn leave the planet Earth on grainy black & white TV. When I was about
9 years old, I wrote Nasa a letter and
got a mound of government reports on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo
programs as a reply.
I had books on space exploration such
as the How and Why Wonder Book of Rockets and Missiles.
These books were always filled with top notch illustrations of the astronaut construction workers, space stations, space ports, moon bases and Martian colonies that I could expect to see as an adult.
These books were always filled with top notch illustrations of the astronaut construction workers, space stations, space ports, moon bases and Martian colonies that I could expect to see as an adult.
We kinda, sorta got the future I was
promised. We do have a space station—we're just missing the “space
taxi” to get there.
In any case, by way of the past I bring
you the future (or something like that).
Here's some great retro-futurist art.
Artwork by Robert Patterson, Jack Coggins, Chesley Bonestell, John
Polgreen, George Solonewitsch, Fred
Freeman and Rolf Kelp.
