KurzweilAI.net

KurzweilAI.net

The Golden Age of space travel is still ahead of us. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will gain access to the orbital realm -- and then, to the Moon and beyond, says Sir Arthur, 89.
Friends, Earthlings, ETs—lend me your sensory organs!

I send you greetings and good wishes at the beginning of another year. I’ll be celebrating (?) my 90th birthday in December—a few weeks after the Space Age completes its first half century. When the late and unlamented Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, it took only about five minutes for the world to realise what had happened. And although I had been writing and speaking about space travel for years, the moment is still frozen in my own memory: I was in Barcelona attending the 8th International Astronautical Congress. We had retired to our hotel rooms after a busy day of presentations when the news broke—I was awakened by reporters seeking comments on the Soviet feat. Our theories and speculations had suddenly become reality!

Notwithstanding the remarkable accomplishments during the past 50 years, I believe that the Golden Age of space travel is still ahead of us. Before the current decade is out, fee-paying passengers will be experiencing sub-orbital flights aboard privately funded passenger vehicles, built by a new generation of engineer-entrepreneurs with an unstoppable passion for space (I’m hoping I could still make such a journey myself). And over the next 50 years, thousands of people will gain access to the orbital realm—and then, to the Moon and beyond.