I remember the future

Today is the 50th Anniversary of Sputnik 1. And the breadcrumbs have never known a man on the moon. I imagined a different future.

There were only just over 50 years from the Wright Brothers to space, and only 12 from the first satellite to man walking on the moon. There has been little progress since. The X-prize may have stimulated interest in private enterprise launching space flights, but in reality these are sub-orbital hops. Not the real thing. I suspect, but hope I am wrong, that interest will die quickly when the routine flights start.

It is a long way to the moon. We don't think about it. Colleagues asked me to help them with a plan to "walk to the moon" to improve fitness. It is difficult to explain that all the interesting stuff happens in the first 10 miles, and then there is more or less nothing to report for a quarter of a million (we can ignore a few Lagrange points). We live in the layer of paint and varnish on a globe. The highest mountain is only 8 miles high, on a planet that is near enough 4 000 miles in diameter. A mere bobble. Space starts in earnest after 100miles. Still insignificant really.

Space is hard. But when I was growing up I thought we would be doing better than this. Here's to Laika, and Gagarin, and Ed White, and Neil Armstrong. And the first man on Mars. I wonder if he is even born yet.