Wouldn’t it be grand if we finally got those flying cars we’ve been promised?

It seems to me that a lot of great stuff that’s been promised for a while remains out of our reach, just over the horizon. Clean and renewable (solar/nuclear) energy is a perfect example of this. Instead of driving electric cars and living in smog free cities, however, we’re burning dinosaurs and killing birds with massive spinning windmills. And who could neglect to mention monorails as another gapping hole in our societal achievement list?

And then there’s the granddaddy of underachieved promise – outer space. And don’t try to point to the X-Prize as a mark of achievement. The recent X-Prize stuff did a tremendous job of getting private industry up to the point that NASA was at with the X-15. In 1959. Huzzay! Let’s think about what was actually accomplished with this stunt. Rich people in space.

There are reasons for our terrestrial shackles. Apart from the fact that few people see anything compelling in leaving Earth, there’s the fact that gravity’s a tough master. The shockingly low number of amateur space ship makers serves as a testament to the difficulty of doing space stuff – nerds especially will focus a surprising amount of time and energy on hobbies that are the slightest bit accessible.

So I question why ideas that have the potential to diminish the difficulty of space travel seem to languish, sometimes from nothing more than disinterest. My first instinct is to assume some sort of conspiracy but it’s probably less exciting than that. It’s probably pride, ignorance, sloth, greed, jealousy or vested interest that’s kept the best thinking in hyperspace from making any progress.

And that’s sad. I for one would love to have the chance to tool around up there in the stars. Looks instead like we’re going to be here a while.