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downwithup.com

Down With Up!!!

Where's my #@%# spaceship?!?

Here it is, the year 2001, and we're still scooting around in internal-combustion land vehicles. What gives?!? Like many, I grew up with TV and it showed me the fantastical stories of George Jetson, Space 1999, and Star Trek. Space travel... its just around the corner! A better society (if we all live through 1984!) with peace, love, and interplanetary space travel.

Yet, here we are, and we have none of that. Oh sure I can make a whole meal, in one dish, in my microwave in under 10 minutes. Tastes like crap, but I can do it. I don't want mushy food, I want my spaceship! I want to winter at a space resort orbiting the sun. I want to have lunch by the rings of Saturn, and go for a romantic dinner on Venus. I don't think I'll ever want to go to Uranus. But that may change... who knows what the future will bring!

Although the spoils of 20th century science fiction have yet to arrive, I still have hope. Perhaps soon we'll be sharing a table with a Wookie in a neighboring galaxy, thanks in part to the XPrize. Scrape up enough cold, hard cash, mix it with an old fashioned "double dare," and the sky's the limit for humankind.

So, lunch Thursday on Titan? I hear they have great atmosphere and a salad bar!

Andrew Duff is a freelance new media serf working in Toronto, Canada.