On pp. 24-26, Robert Anderson summarizes much information about the year 1951, when I was two. I will not reproduce it all here but one sentence is ironically prophetic:
"Space flight was for the next century, when an eccentric millionaire might finance a project." (p. 25)
When Poul Anderson wrote that sentence, he thought that it expressed an expectation that had been disproved by recent and current events. Now, in that next century, the eccentric millionaire seems more likely - but we still do not know what will happen.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Ha! I too immediately thought of men like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos! And I hope they succeed in getting us off this rock. If so, they would deserve to become TRILLIONAIRES.
More science fictionally, I think Anderson had the fictional D.D. Harriman in mind, as we see him in Heinlein's THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON.
Ad astra! Sean
The irony being, of course, that Elon Musk -also- has D.D. Harriman in mind and is in fact using him as a conscious model, along with other SFnal works.
Not everything that is imagined can be done, but everything that is done for the first time must be imagined first.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I forgot about how Musk had been at least partly inspired by the science fiction he read. It makes me wonder if he was also inspired by such Andersonian characters as Anson Guthrie and Nicholas van Rijn?
Ad astra! Sean
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