Yuri Gagarin

AOG, Madrid

Today it is 50 years since Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin climbed into his space ship and was launched into space, thereby kickstarting the space race between two superpowers which ended with the first man in the moon in 1969. 

It took Gagarin just 108 minutes to orbit Earth and he returned as the World's very first space man. 

I think that the world henceforth, and even during my childhood, looked to a promising future. 

Space travel, colonies on the Moon, terraforming, traveling to Mars and beyond. 

It all looked splendid. 

Problem is, it never happened. 

I rememebr as a child being told about the future I would live in.

About flying cars, hovering craft, day trips to Space, to the bottom of the ocean, supercomputers this and supercomputers that.

And yes, we even had supersonic flight courtesy of the Anglo-French Concorde. 

Until we didn't.

Heck, remember the world of the Jetson's? Now that was futuristic and foreseeable!

Unfortunately, it seems that the future we were being sold does exist, but only in cyberspace. Not in outer space. Or Earth. 

You need only pick up a video game, or watch a Sci-Fi movie to glimpse at that future, where you should be living had all the predictions come true. 

It would appear that we do know how to furnish  and dress that future; we just don't know how to make it happen. 

Yes, I know we've had many advances and technical revolutions lately. 

The Internet towers above most of these, but it was conjured up back in the 1960s. 

What else? Yes, cell phones, personal computers, microwave ovens, DVDs, Plasma, LED, LCD television, 3D everything, but little else.

Granted, we live in a more advanced state of development (though at what cost to the planet!) than we did 30 years ago, or even 20. Or 10. 

But if you take a look around you, nothing much has changed. Cars still don't fly. We won't send a manned aircraft to Mars until 20..who know when (so expensive you see). 

Supersonic flight is but a memory to us (though young people have no memory of it), and there are no colonies on the Moon. At least not Earth colonies. 

So...what does the new future hold? It would appear that we have absolutely no clue. Nor do we know what it will look like. 

Yes, thank you thank you all you futurologists with your massive projections of our current time into our distant future where things look pretty much the same except for their future-looking design cues. 

I'm talking about the great work of people like Syd Mead, but also people like Collani.

But if you really are wondering, here's a link to an article in the British press (The Independent) concerning the year 2020. That's only 8-9 years from now. 

Do you think it will really be like that?

How about these products? Are they part of the future you envision?

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was given a copy of a book titled: The World of the Future: Future Cities. 

I loved it. I read it and reread it. It was my personal Bible. 

I even began to draw articles to add on to what was already there. 

I think that is where my love for design started. I wanted to design part of the future.

Today, this book has no equal. 

Nothing is being published to resemble it. I think it is because we have lost our taste for things like that. 

Yes, we like progress, but progress turned out to look like nothing we were shown as kids.

It may still surprise us though!

The end of the Future that never was

AOG, London

If like me, you were raised in the 1970s and 1980s, then you too grew up in a world where the future was promising, high tech, streamlined, inexpensive, and, most importantly, just around the corner.

As the 1980s drew to a close, my life got very busy with itself and the 1990s were no different. After having spent the last ten years growing up, trying to find happiness, getting an education, learning to love, and hate, and generally being busy, I eventually got in touch with my inner philosopher and began to ponder seriously about the world and its marvels.

In no time did I realise that my childhood and youth had been times of great wonder and amazement, followed by young adulthood spent dealing with issues and problems and mostly other people. Mostly stupid people. And at all levels.

But this is not about them, this is about the dream I was fed as a young person of a future where the moon would be colonised, cars would levitate, travel would be increasingly shorter.

In short, the Science Fiction future that the Cold War ensured once the West won and the Communists lost. But did this ever happen? Did this future materialise or rather, can it or will it ever do so? Like hell!

As far as outer space being colonised goes, forget it. After one major accident in 1987, and again this year, NASA is no longer the space dream factory it once was. Intent on relying on very old looking Space Shuttles, it no longer dares to dream of sharp, computer-designed, aerodynamic spaceships.

They promised us a space Ferrari but instead continue to service our dreams with a double-decker bus. And one which is no longer as reliable as it once was. As for levitating cars, well if this should ever occur outside a Star Wars set, I probably will not be alive to see it. If anything, it would appear like we are going backwards rather than forwards.

Who is to blame? I don't know. I do know this is not the future I was sold. It is not the high-tech world I expected. Unfortunately, my expectations, and those of my generation, have been lowered. We now marvel at rather pedestrian things like, forgive me for saying so, the Internet. Yes, it is great, but all the Internet is is a communicative network for people lucky enough to own computers.
Where are the 300 story-high buildings? The fast ships? The space colonies? The sea farms? The ecological (eolic power, solar power &c.) power sources? Why are we still stuck with Hydroelectric and nuclear power? Is this the best we can do?

Obviously yes. Yes, the future is now. It rather sucks.