Our Real Future

During the Apollo missions, I was reading a lot of sf, mainly focused on James Blish but also reading Heinlein, Anderson etc. Consequently, I hoped for interstellar exploration in the early twenty-first century. Heinlein's Future History had introduced the idea of an interregnum of space travel. That has happened, more or less, at least beyond Earth orbit. But by now I would have expected reusable spaceships, not another circum-Lunar mission beginning with a big rocket blastoff and ending with a parachute splashdown. 

We are living in the real future, not in any of the fictional ones. Some of those fictional futures involved a World War III aftermath. Poul Anderson covered every option, including WWIII aftermaths followed by space travel. Late at night, I always ask: which further future are we moving into? Wells' Time Traveller sped through tomorrow into futurity. We will live into it, starting tomorrow morning.

Good night.