It bears mentioning: * 1903 - First manned, powered flight * 1927 - First New York to Paris flight * 1957 - First artificial satellite * 1962 - John Glen in

It bears mentioning: * 1903 - First manned, powered flight * 1927 - First New York to Paris flight * 1957 - First artificial satellite * 1962 - John Glen in space * 1969 - Man walks on Moon * 2012 - ... Now, I'm not trying to say anything about stagnation of progress, for I feel that is the wrong lesson to take from this story. A similar looking timeline could be constructed for the development of the internet, except shifted about 50 years later, or about the exploration of the Americas, except shifted about 400 years earlier (and stretched out a bit). This story has been repeated throughout human history. The keys to progress are the ability to identify when a frontier is open to exploitation, and the ability to identify when the frontier vanishes in the face of conquest. Flight has become mundane. Spaceflight will, I should think, soon become mundane. The internet is becoming mundane. The question is, what events will people be commemorating in this fashion 50 years from now?