/sci/ - Science & Math

Why didn't we get the fantastic future we were promised?

In 1962, it was possible for the President of the United States to stand in front of the nation and say 'we choose to go to the moon!' - and for the nation to deliver it 7 years later. At that moment, the future felt limitless.

But today, the US cannot even send a man into low earth orbit without relying on Russian technology (itself a 1960s relic), and has no capacity at all to put a man on the moon, let alone anywhere further afield.

50 years ago, people were told that by now we would be living in underwater cities, driving flying cars and having vacations on the moon - or even Mars.

Instead, when we go on vacation in 2016, we still often board Boeing 747s - a plane designed before the invention of the pocket calculator, and which first flew in 1969 - BEFORE that moon landing. We don't even have supersonic airliners anymore - which we did have in 1976.

We were promised by President Nixon in 1971 that cancer would be cured by the time of the US bicentennial. It didn't happen.

We were told we were entering the Atomic Age - that by the year 2000, a thousand nuclear reactors would be powering America. But today, the US has only 100 nuclear reactors.

What happened? Why didn't that bright future materialise?

pic related; a glimpse into some possible future