Foretelling the Future … Can anyone really predict the future?

1926 -- “To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth – all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances”. 
(Lee de Forest - Search Quotes)

From Silent Film "Trip to the Moon"

Based off Jules Vern science fiction, a trip to 

the moon was a shot from a canon, 

very similar to a rifle on a grand scale. 

Of course stopping was a some what rough ride!

Neil Armstrong First Step on Moon

In 1969 Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon 

1936 -- "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." (Grace Murano)

White Sands First Successful Launch

...... 10 years later, White Sands the first successful launch of American-built rocket

1957 -- "Space travel is bunk." (Quoted Prediction)

 

SPUTNIK

----, Two weeks later, the Russian Sputnik went into orbit, October 4, 1957

APOLLO Launch

De Forest passed away 30 June 1961 just two months after Alan Shepard successfully ventured into space on a rocket.

… Perhaps, when making a prediction, one should never be absolute!

In 1987, James Gleick’s, Chaos: Making a New Science, spoke about the work of Benoit Mandelbrot in defining Fractal Geometry. A very visual mathematician, Fractal Geometry is descriptive, not analytical by definition. In the realm of complex mathematics, researchers found that fractals describe system after system found in nature that previous confounded description due their randomness. Each system had order to a certain point, at which time chaos occurred. Amazingly, the nature of turbulence, the unpredictability of weather and even the stock market’s rise and decline into fractal patterns. Before cell phones, the wired telephone system, yes, for some they were connected to the wall, had white noise that seemed inexplicable. Mandelbrot found that the white noise, pure random signal, followed a fractal pattern.

Woolfram Math World - Generated Fractal

What’s the point of all that fractal stuff?

Predicting, and forecasting, is only ordered to a point. In my studies of statistics, predicting something outside the data sample is not valid! Forecasting is going outside the sample space – the known world as it is today. Outside the known world forecasters base there ‘guess’, usually an educated guess on their knowledge base of the world around them. What they cannot see is the future. In that future there are forces that can change in their favor or take 42 years to set foot on the moon!

The force that ignited the forward thrust to putting a man on the moon was the inspiration of President Kennedy. His charisma set in motion financial, government, and social forces that, not only put a man on the moon, but a series of innovations for everyday life, such as Teflon and sticky notes.. Through the leadership of one man a structure was set up through the government, the financial means was provided plus contributions from corporate and academic innovations, and the social support open the doors of people ready to work long hours to see success to land a man on the moon. The technological advances were the result of combining technology experts for a common goal. Their interaction with the experience of pilots and aircraft manufactures fine tunes the space program. Some times, the thought of long gone technical minds of the past, and the science fictions writers start the dream somewhere on the planet. Sometimes just a little push gets the competition trying harder!

The weaknesses  of setting a man on the moon from a dream to reality was timing. The ideas were there, but the technology was not! The social beliefs of those time had a hard time excepting the earth was round! There certainly was not the financial or the technical know how to fly across the ocean without refueling until the mid 20th Century.

James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science

William A Sherden, The Fortune Sellers

Search Quotes - Lee De Forest Quotes

http://www.searchquotes.com/search/Lee%20De%20Forest/

Grace Murano - 15 Failed Predictions about the Future - New York Times

http://www.oddee.com/item_96635.aspx

Quoted Prediction - Web of Fate - Sir Harold Spencer Jones, 1957.  http://weboffate.com/prediction/Space-travel-is-bunk/7317/

Sputnik – US Air Force Public Domain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sputnik_1.jpg

Woolfram Math World - Generated Fractal

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Fractal.html

White Sands First Successful Launch
http://www.theurbn.com/2012/02/being-wrong-failed-predictions/

Images of launches and Man setting foot on moon from NASA

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html