It has been suggested by some that it will take another 100 years before we reach Mars... but then people said the same thing about sequencing the human genome halfway through the project when it was only 1% complete.
On the other hand, I still can see in my mind a special issue of Life magazine from the 1960s, about the US space program, with a timeline of future milestones running across the bottom of several pages. It had men landing on Mars in 1980, if I recall correctly.
Of course, but this phenomenon is recognised, and people, the media, got, and continue to get excited and get it wrong, and often are more interested in telling a story than the actual facts.
Fact is though that in most measurable ways "technology" is growing at an exponential rate every 12-18 months or so , both in performance and cost-effectiveness, and that coupled with the synergy of before unconnected technologies, is leading us in a very clear direction. The timing may be out for some predictions, sometimes, for sure, for various reasons (not least of all who is doing the predicting and based on what, and for what purpose)
but the direction and trend is very clear.
How long ago was the first manned flight? and now look at the aerospace industry.
I am not even talking about Mars here per se, I am just saying that , we are at (or nearing) in my opinion a knee in the bend of an exponential growth curve in technology, where the doubling effect is really going to become apparent, and where we are going to
continue to see technology, developments and new inventions, not only become a reality, but become a reality quicker, more often, and reach more of the population in a quicker time frame than before for ever decreasing costs.
By before I mean the last 100 years.
The time frame I predict these changes to become more and more profound, is from right now, and over the next 25-35 years.
I believe we will see more change in the next 25-35 years than we have seen in the past 100 years of human history.
Some of those changes, had seeds that were sowed long long ago, even before the 60's and 80's as you point out.
Thing is those seeds, that were sowed, have grown into a forest, and that forest is growing at an exponential rate.
Blink and it doubles.
The only thing that is assured is change... we all know that.
I am just arguing that it is accelerating and will continue to do so.
We cannot even keep up with laws for tech and its impact on society, already as it is.
(Just imagine as measurable performance of tech continues to grow at these rates exponentially each year ish, then in ten years it will roughly be 1000 times more powerful/efficient/cost effective....... and in 20 years
1 million times more powerful, and in 40 years time...)
Poll
