Tim Wrote: > I predicted the Shuttle program would never succeed. I never expected > cities on either body, because there was no economic reason to have > them. (I used to hear the stuff about growing ultra-pure crystals in > space, but I had seen Wacker's CZ crystal pullers, and I knew that > $50K/pound into orbit wasn't going to compete with crystal pullers the > size of a basketball court. I knew by 1980 that the Space Shuttle and > Space Station would be doing g-job "effects of zero-g on ant colonies" > crappy science.)
I think the shuttle program is a good example of why future prediction is like spontaneous symmetry breaking. Invented in the late 1960's, it could have been built anytime thereafter, or not at all. It flew in 1981. The next one could fly in a year or two, or the fleet could be junked. The space plane could be flying now, if the tanks didn't require a complete redesign from composite to aluminum. It could have gotten funded to be finished, instead of put into storage. Maybe in 10 years, someone will do it, like the shuttle. Maybe they won't. Maybe another group will do something similar. Maybe no one will care. > I saw by 1978 our buildings in Santa Clara linked by lasers, and our > designs being sent up to Oregon on the then-fastest modems, and I saw > us leasing channels on satellites, so I knew networking would be big. It's interesting that none of the famous SF writers of the 50's saw networking in our future. Yet in retrospect, it's obvious it had to happen. I saw Stan Ovshinsky on CNN yesterday demonstrating a slew of working hydrogen power devices. Will Bush jumpstart the Hydrogen Economy? It's anyone's guess. I wouldn't try to fit "when" into a 20 year window. > I haven't listed all of my _wrong_ predictions, as they are harder to > remember than is saying what I thought about each of the issues you > raised. I suppose I expected more use of ultra high level languages > (some call it AI) instead of the low-level C and C++ we've seen so much > of. And I suppose I expected VR to come on stronger than it has. C abstracts hardware just enough that it miminizes the total effort required to port itself plus Unux. It is free, and because it is on everything, people use it to write applications as well. PL1G could have filled the same niche easily. Again, something that could have gone either way, but once done, was cast in concrete for all eternity. Then there are the technologies that had to get jumpstarted by something other than their obvious application. Flat panel displays got jumpstarted by computers, not by television, their obvious application, because flat panel TVs could never have supported the high initial cost. Now they're cheap, and will replace CRTs for everything. Compact Flash got jumpstarted by digital cameras, and now as the price comes down, will replace floppy/floptical media in computers across the board. Other examples are numerous. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
