And in other ways, technology has produced what no writer ever dreamed of.
"Science fiction writers missed the most salient feature of our modern era: the Internet," McDevitt said.
Ultimately, no matter what humans manage to achieve, science fiction writers will be, by definition, always a step ahead.
And there are some items on the science fiction wish list that experts say could be realized soon.
"One SF prediction that I would like very much to see: Get solar collectors launched to beam energy back home, and get away from fossil fuels," McDevitt suggested.
Colonies on the moon and Mars, space elevators and quantum computers also may be on the horizon, depending on whom you ask.
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Add CommentWe can always wait for the new (old) USS Enterprise to be built in 20 years and go explore our solar system, but we will not get any further than that until we figure out how to create and put a super nova in our gas tank. We definitely need to get our minds away from fossil fuel for space travel to happen. If we can create a Sun and explode it and put it back together and explode it again, that may produce the speed we need in space to travel light year distances within a few days...that may be a good start. As soon as we figure out how our Sun was created and produce a shield that can hold an explosion like that, we may then be heading in the right direction for above light speed travel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"'Science fiction writers missed the most salient feature of our modern era: the Internet,' McDevitt said."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClearly, Mcdevitt has never read any of William Gibson's work, or any of the other "cyberpunk" authors.
Our number one need now above all else, is a new form of energy to harness (safely that is). Boiling water and using steam to spin big 'fans' isn't going to take us anywhere. Interstellar travel will happen, it's an inevitability. The only questions are how fast can we go, and how do we power it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this????????????
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans haven't even been to Mars and unmanned spacecraft have explored a speck of a speck of our own solar system.
The author of this article is not a science fiction reader.
There are a number of ways to do interstellar travel, the SF writers are merely unaware of them:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this* Slow interstellar: colonize a comet and burn a small part of it's hydrogen in a fusion reactor for enough kick to travel to the next star. Save the rest to power your city during the trip. A good size comet has enough materials to build a large city with. Your initial colony may be a lot smaller and grow along the way.
* Beamed travel: Send a small robotic probe quickly to the next star. Have it build a receiving station. Use the Sun as a gravitational lens to focus a communication laser to the receiver and send the description of a person instead of sending them bodily. Atomic force microscopes can scan at an atomic level, so you send an atom by atom map of their body. Even at that level of detail it's a million times less energy to send the description than the actual object.
And no, I don't have the technical details of how to do it, merely demonstrating there are other ways than the science fiction cliche of a metal skinned starship with big engines.
You overstate the usefulness of atomic force microscopes. They can generate an IMAGE of an object with molecule-level (not atom-level) precision, but they can't tell you anything about its composition. They're also unable to provide information about anything beneath the surface. You could scan a person & beam the information to generate a statue on the other side, but nothing more. even if you could find a way to beam a precise, atom-by-atom description of a person across interstellar distances it would still take years (or longer) to get them there (4.2 years to Proxima Centauri, the closest star) and you'd have to figure out a way to animate the new body once it was constructed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is an uncomfortable truth that it is probably impossible for our species to colonize outside of our own solar system. There are just too many obstacles and dangers to overcome, and we will never achieve velocities for our spacecrafts which would make extrasolar travel practical or feasible (in fact we will probably only be able to reach but a very small fraction of the speed of light). When you consider the dangers from cosmic rays and high velocity objects (that can compromise hull integrity with catastrophic effect) and the logistical problems of inflight fueling, ship maintenance, the creation of a failsafe life support system and food supply, extrasolar system space travl is nothing more than a fantasy. I am a fan of Star Trek but I know that the world it portrays is not achievable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI forgot to add that time (that is genuine and not due to relativistic time dilation) travel is and always will be impossible, because it is impossible to isolate an event or object from its nonlinear causal framework or its dualistic part/whole function within a given framework of intrasystem and intersystem interaction (reference General System theory by Ludwig von Bertelanffy). Since velocities by macroscopic objects will never achieve anything more than a pitifully small fraction of the speed of light so-called relativistic time travel (due to time dilation) will never be a significant consideration.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat many or most or all, I can't think of an exception, classic (prior mid-1950s) scifi writers missed was the invention of the transitor and minaturization of comm gear and computers. The computers, if addressed, were huge tube affairs, even the aliens had big ones.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese science fiction writers lack imagination. Scientists are more imaginative and optimistic. Arthur Clarke said the problem with interstellar space travel is not speed but biology. Humans have short lifespan relative to interstellar travel time. If advancement in medical science can put astronauts in indefinite hibernation, they can travel for thousands of years and wake up when they reach their destination.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComputer scientists Turing and Shannon never doubted intelligent machines are possible. SETI astronomer Seth Shostak believes if they find advanced intelligent life, it will not be flesh and blood. It will be robotic, basically intelligent machines. He believes this will also be our future. Eventually we will replace our body with robotics like the Terminator. The advantages are obvious. It's super strong, doesn't get sick, doesn't get old, easy to repair and replace, virtually immortal.
Robotic beings don't have problem with interstellar travel. With nanotechnology, you can make them very small. Your spaceship will weigh in grams. It requires little energy to accelerate to very high speed.