Will it happen?

[enggrrl]

I'm a geek, I've always been a geek.  I love books about space.  Star Trek was probably my introduction to the Sci/fi genre, I loved TOS books, but watched TNG more.  One of my favourite books, a Spider and Jeanne Robinson book, Starseed, is about a dancer who can't dance on earth anymore so she decides to move to outerspace (there's a goo that allows humans to live in space without a spacesuit).  For 3 months she lives at TOPSTEP, a spacestation that allows people to get used to living in Zero G, because once you go through the transformation you can't come back.  I remember thinking that I was going to go to Topstep, or whatever there was when I was an adult.  20 years later, we're not even close to having relatively affordable space tourism.  I realize I feel a little let down, I truly believed that when I was grown up, we'd be holidaying in space.

I'm 33 now, I know that Buzz Aldren went into space in his 70s, and with the changes to medicine there's a good chance I'll live an active life longer than in the past, but I've just realized I no longer think that I *will* travel in space.  I hope that I will, but I'm not conviced that it'll happen.  It was a sad moment.  There are lots of other things I thought would have happened by now, but this one just struck me suddenly when I was watching "Space Cowboys".

I guess I might have to get out my old books (like Young Astronauts, but I'm missing a few) and see if I can regain that conviction.