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Many authors have stated that the problem with SF
today is that today IS the future
view link winner first stage space elavator prize (which Sir Arthur Predicted)
view link Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan's amazing achievment
view link second PRIVATE company providing launch vehicles for the military and anyone with the money and desire to fling something into space
view link Airplane mounted laser "death ray"

A Star Trek communicator? My cell phone is smaller and can do more.
100 mpg cars? The Chevy Volt (which isn't the best) gets 280 mpg

These are just off the top of my head. If I had more time I could find more.

Actually, the Space Elevator belongs to Konstantin Tsilkovsky who thought of it in 1895 after he saw the Eiffel Tower.

As for the rest, you mention one of three legs to what I tell people is a huge sea change for Humanity. The two are poly extremophiles and the search for exoplanets. When you add the other two, you realize that we have hardly scratched the surface in Sci Fi.

Were you aware that we have critters (poly extremophiles on our planet that could not have evolved here. Even more important, they are tough enough to in rocky spaceships (asteroids) for billions of years. Where could they have come from? No idea, but I will bet any amount of money that organic life originated far away 13 or more billion years ago as has been infecting the Cosmos ever since. Exogenesis or Pan spermianism: we won't find the answer on this planet or elsewhere any time soon. For sci fi: that means oodles of new stories.

Then, there is the search for exoplanets. Were you aware that the Swiss HARPS project led by the Swiss (the Swiss??!!!) may be confirming organic life on Gliese 581 d, even as we blog. Gliese 581 d is so different from Earth it's hard to believe that we would feel at home when we travel there. It's swelled to 8 times the size of Earth but it is literally all water (including its core) which means the gravitational pull is about the same as Earth. It orbits tiny red dwarf planet which means its sunlight is infrared, yet it lies almost exactly at the center of its "goldilocks zone." And, then there is the fact that it's three billion years older than Earth.

And, of course, it almost certainly has organic life. As I point out in a novel I am currently polishing, we will find organic life on a planet of another solar system before we find it on Europa or Mars--- not at all what sci fi writers imagined happening. How backwards is that?

And that's only the first planet with billions more to come just a whole hellavalot sooner than anyone imagined.

So, any sci fi author who says we are living the future hasn't looked around lately. It's very likely that the cusp to the 22nd Century will be more unlike the 21st Century than the cusp to the 21st Century was to the advent of the 20th. Sounds to me like some sci fi writers better break away from their coffee shop hangouts, put their thinking caps back on, and get their butts in gear. We have a galaxy of new mysteries to explore.

For those who are interested in a first look at Gliese 581 d (Waterworld), check out Methuselah's Gate: Wateworld 2151. You can follow the tri weekly graphic strip at the site: waterworld2151.com

You can also read the story from its beginning on lrobertsonbooks.com.

Len I'm not really disagreeing with you, but what I'm saying isn't that big ideas come from big science BUT from big minds that we may be lacking. How many times a century are we granted an Einstein or Hawking? How many times are we given the gift of an Asimov (now he was a polymath), a Heinlein?

Actually, we have a few geniuses at this moment. Burt Rutan immediately comes to mind, and there are others such as Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, the Swiss astronomers who may be confirming life on Gliese 581d even as we blog.

It's not that we lack the geniuses. It's that sci fi became arthritic over the past forty years. We lost a lot when Mariner IV made its fly by of Mars in 1964. For 70 years, we had a planet we could see and almost touch, and then it was taken from us. After that, it was all "long ago and far far away." Eventually, it all ported over to fantasy.

Now, with a suddenness that I find stunning, we sci fi writers have real planets and real mysteries to explore. If you want to see where one sci fi writer is going, follow the adventures of Tina as she adventures on Gliese 581d in the year 2151. The site: Waterworld2151.com has the graphic novel strip which is published 3 times a week. If you would like to see the past story, you can find it on lrobertsonbooks.com if you seek out Waterworld2151

Is there a conversation here that doesn't require inclusion of Gliese 581 and Waterworld2151?

Considering the fact that Gliese 581d comes the closest to Perceval Lowell's Mars,which inspired sci fi writers from H.G. Welles and Edgar Rice Burroughs to Robert Heinlein since Mariner IV, I think it should be front and center on any discussion about the future direction of sci fi. By the way, when it comes to big, 'd' fits the bill. At 7.8 times the size of Earth, it dwarfs most imagined sci planets containing humanlike civilizations other than Ring World.

Frankly, I find it refreshing to roam a planet who's dimensions become more real with every passing day. The fact that it's nearly twice as old as Earth is another facet to make it even more intriguing. Most important, confirmation of organic life on Gliese 581d, which could happen even as we blog, will at a single stroke make it the most important planet sci fi writers have ever had to write about. And, I have no doubt it will instantly be named Waterworld by the sci fi public, ignoring the strictures of The International Astronomers Union which is loath to name planets orbiting other stars.

In other words, if you think Gliese 581d is hard to ignore in sci fi now, just wait a year.

Correction: line should read "since Mariner IV destroyed it in 1964..."

There has to be a way to correct text errors on this blog site.

I respect your right to your opinion, Len, but I find it hard to believe that there's nothing else worth discussing about SF. Yet it seems that every other topic here, no matter what it subject it starts out on, gets turned to this. It gets tiresome for those who don't share the interest.

The Vatican of the Catholic Church sponsored a conference last week to address the question of life and civilizations across the Cosmos because life will be confirmed "in the next few years." The centerpiece was the current effort by the European HARPS to confirm organic life on Gliese 581d, which could happen any time.

If you don't understand how game changing Gliese 581d will be, reread the histories about Columbus. For Sci Fi, it will have the impact of a hydrogen bomb. And, it's about time. The genera needs to be shaken free of its negativism and the fantasy of "Spaceship Earth."