I always get overly excited and impressed every time that NASA launches another spacecraft into space. The force and the technology seems almost dreamish when you see it in its full scale. However, I always get slightly annoyed that they still have somewhat old school interfaces when we see the inside of the space shuttles. Sure, they were built a long time ago, but you might think that they could upgrade them from time to time. The geek in me wants those uber futuristic interfaces and touchscreens that we see in every science fiction movie. There is, of course, a reason why they still prefer the analog approach, and that is because they are way more reliable. You wouldn’t want to be stuck in space with a broken touchscreen if you know what I mean.
NASA has had some radical ideas throughout their operation, and we always get excited about new designs and ideas when they reveal them to the rest of the world. Back in 1970, NASA tried out some space stations on paper and dreamt up some pretty neat creations. Back then, anything was possible; however, NASA had to back off from those ideas due to several issues with materials, scale and funding.
The large scale space station plantations and land masses hovering in space are just the way I would like space stations to be created. When you look at it and compare it to the ISS (International Space Station), you can clearly see that funding, stability and security were way more important than the dreams of a new small tube planet orbiting our blue planet. Hopefully we will see something like this at some point. That would totally satisfy the geek in me.
