Holy crap, It's the future!

I was born in 1967. I grew up in the 70's and became an adult in the 80's. For any child it's hard to conceive how your life will be as an adult. I'll be 33 years old in the year 2000, that's like a million years from now. As a kid I thought that if it only took 66 years from the Wright brothers' first powered flight to Neil Armstrong putting his foot down on the Moon, then surely we were entering an age of spaceflight. When I grew up I thought it wouldn't be out of the question for me to get a job in space. Not exactly like "The Jetsons" but still pretty cool. The reality is that we reached a plateau and interest waned. The major players were too busy not blowing the crap out of each other to focus too much on spaceflight. Even the Shuttle, which was a great development, didn't reach the figurative heights it could have.My usual line is that when I was a kid I envisioned going to work in my flying car, wearing a silver jumpsuit and eating my meals in pill form. Obviously that's some 1950's vision of the future that is probably never going to happen. I am 39 years old and will probably live another 30 or 40 years if I am lucky. When I die my coffin will more than likely be transported in a gasoline powered hearse. My consciousness will, in all likelihood, not be downloaded into a computer so I can live on. My remains will probably be buried in the ground, not shot out into space. My grandchildren will do their homework with a pencil and paper. There will still be war, disease and hunger. The Mets will still break the hearts of the faithful every September. The Republicans and Democrats will still be the only two groups of idiots that we can choose from...You get my point, don't you? The Information age has just begun, the Space age may just be a memory. Did we drop the ball somewhere? Or is it right that we turn our rapidly shortening attention spans to other things for now. I want more "Holy Shit!" moments before I die, and not "Holy Shit! The World Trade Center was destroyed.". I mean more like "Holy Shit! The fall of Communism.". I want to see a cure for Cancer, a manned mission to another star (I know, I know...), A black, Jewish, gay, woman president....OK, that was just to see if you were still paying attention.Let's raise some scientists, engineers and mathematicians instead of more lawyers and accountants. Maybe things will be more interesting for our great-grandchildren.