So today is, as you are no doubt aware the fiftieth annivesary of Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's rocket ride around the globe, in doing so becoming the first man in Space.
This is a much worn path that I'm gonna spend some time trotting down, but I'm going down it anyway..
It had taken 57 years (from 1903 to 1960) to go from first flight of the Wright brothers, to Yuri Gagarin's maiden manned spaceflight. 50 years further down the line and we are still no closer to having a Moon-Base, regular 'proper' space flights instead of scratching about at the top of the atmosphere, or any kind of launch capacity beyond single-use rockets.
You can blather on about mobile communications and other technological advances such a miniaturisation and future NBIC tech all you like but I still think that this a sad tale about human acheivement in the last half of the twentieth century and first decade of the 21st. When did we get so paralised by fear (fear itself, and the fear of failure)?
Ok, I accept that spaceflight is risky and expensive, but part of me thinks that This Is what Makes It Worth Doing. But even if you take manned spaceflight out of the equation we are still suffering from a poverty of ideas and imagination when it comes to grand-scale engineering.
Where are the gigantic capital schemes for building the new infrastructures of the next 150 years? Why are we not being pushed to test what we can achieve, instead of patching and repairing the legacy left to us by the Victorian Philanthropists? I'm talking here about smart/decentralised energy grids, networked & integrated transport systems, even fucking clean water supplies capable of meeting demand where needed etc etc.
These are the very schemes that could energise the country, provide new jobs and economic stimulation to deprived areas, and give us a push into the future that would make the white heat of technology that Harold Wilson talked about in the 60's seem like a used bath-full of tepid water.
I swear to god that if it wasn't for the last couple of offensive foreign wars and occupations of the last 50 years we would've had a muvva-fuggin no-foolin Space Elevator by now, but that is a rant for another time I fear.
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