Journal Entry #48: Past Prologue

Date: December 16, 2007
Time: 22:09

Okay, let me get this straight. We orbited the Earth, then we went to the Moon a few times, and we've sent out some satellites, landed a few roving robots on Mars, and keep trying to fix a space station that has maybe two, or at most, a half-dozen occupants at any one time.

Is that all we've done in regards to space exploration? As far as I'm concerned, that's pitiful.

Y'know, there was a time, when there was so much promise. There was a time when the year 2000, and all of the years after, there was time when that meant "The Future". And here we are, we are in what we considered to be our future, and we have done nothing. Okay, maybe not nothing. I mean, we have polluted the planet to the point where winters aren't what they used to be, and I'm not leaving myself out, I've certainly contributed to the pollution rate.

We're still fighting with each other over a viscous sludge that is running out. We're still fighting with each other over whose belief system is better. (Psst, none of them, they're all open to interpretation.) The point is, we're still fighting, and I've had enough of it.

But beyond the fighting, and all the political rhetoric that is repeatedly bandied about, I'm still disappointed that we haven't gotten any further than our own galaxy. Yes, I could have said "solar system", but we have had one or two satellites go beyond Pluto. And don't even get me started on that! I mean, it's bad enough that Pluto has aways been the runt of the Solar System. It's orbit is completely different from the other planets, it's smaller even than Mercury, and because it's so far from the sun, it's pretty much a ball of ice. But now they go and tell us that it doesn't qualify as a planet, that's just wrong.

I keep reading these articles about studies that have been performed for experiments that, to me, are just about the dumbest things I've ever heard of. I would like to know which moron was kept awake nights wondering "Gee, what if mice weren't afraid of cats?" Is that what science has come to now, breeding a mouse that can kick a cat's ass?

I'm sorry, all I know is, I want my jet pack. I want my flying car, and my apartment above the clouds. I want to work in an office that has 3-hour workdays and is run by pushing a few buttons. I want to come home and make dinner by pushing some more buttons, and I don't mean the ones on the phone to order take-out, or even by logging onto a website and placing an order.

I want the future that was written about in magazines, and I want it right now.