Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

1980 (No, I still don’t know what that revolutionary gadget is-unless it is

the computer chip.) The sexual revolution: it continues apace-FemLib, GayLib, single

women with progeny and never a lifted eyebrow, staid old universities and colleges

that permit unmarried couples to room together on campus, group marriages, “open”

marriages, miles and miles of “liberated” beaches. Most of this can be covered by

one sentence: What used to be concealed is now done openly. But sexual attitudes are

in flux; the new ones not yet cultural mores.

But I think I see a trend, one that might jell by 2000 A.D. The racial

biological function of “family” is the protection of children and pregnant women. To

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accomplish that, family organization must be rewarding to men as well .. . and I do

not mean copulation. There is a cynical old adage covering that: “Why keep a cow

when milk is so cheap?” A marriage must offer its members emotional, spiritual, and

physical comforts superior to those to be found in living alone if that prime

function is to be accomplished.

(Stipulated: there are individuals, both sexes, who prefer to live alone.

This is racially self-correcting.)

The American core family (father, mother, two or three children) has ceased

to be emotionally satisfying-if it ever was. It is a creation of our times:

mobility, birth control, easy divorce. Early in this century the core family was

mother, father, four to eight children.. . and was itself a unit in an extended

family of

grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins living near enough (if not in the same

house) to be mutually supportive. If a child was ill, Aunt Cora came over to help

while Aunt Abby took the other kids into her home. See Mauve Decade fiction.

With increased mobility and fewer children this undefined extended-family

pattern disappeared almost without its disappearance being noticed. To the extent to

which it was noticed there was often glee at being free of the nuisance of in-laws

and kinfolk. It took considerably longer to realize that the advantages had also

disappeared.

We will not get a return of the extended family of the sort that

characterized the 19th century and the early 20th . . . but the current flux of

swingers’ clubs, group marriages, spouse swapping, etc., is, in my opinion, fumbling

and almost unconscious attempts to regain the pleasure, emotional comfort, and

mutual security once found in the extended family of two or more generations back.

Prediction: by 2000 A.D. or soon thereafter extended families of several

sorts will be more common than core families. The common characteristic of the

various types will be increased security for children under legally enforceable

contracts.

3. 1950 The most important military fact of this century is that there is no

way to repel an attack from outer space.

1965 I flatly stand by this one. True, we are now working on Nike- Zeus and

Nike-X and related systems and plan to spend billions on such systems-and we know

that others are doing the same thing. True, it is possible to hit an object in orbit

or trajectory. Nevertheless this prediction is as safe as predicting tomorrow’s

sunrise. Anti-aircraft fire never stopped air attacks; it simply made them

expensive. The disadvantage in being at the bottom of a deep “gravity well” is very

great; gravity gauge will be as crucial in the

coming years as wind gauge was in the days when sailing ships controlled empires.

The nation that controls the Moon will control the Earth-but no one seems willing

these days to speak that nasty fact out loud.

1980 I have just heard a convincing report that the USSR has developed

lasers far better than ours that can blind our eyes-in-the-sky satellites and,

presumably, destroy our ICBMs in flight. Stipulate that this rumor is true: It does

not change my 1950 assertion one iota. Missiles tossed from the Moon to the Earth

need not be H-bombs or any sort of bomb-or even missile-shaped. All they need be is

massive.. . because they arrive at approximately seven miles per second. A laser

capable of blinding a satellite and of disabling an ICBM to the point where it can’t