Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

the citizen to find housing in his/her new state.

Thus no constitutional amendment is needed. But the state lines are fading

year by year anyhow as power continues to move from the states to the Federal

government and especially into the hands of nonelected bureaucrats.

17. 1950 All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a

continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic “brain.”

1965 No further comment.

1980 This prediction still stands-although it may be my wishful thinking.

Such a system was designed over thirty years ago; Congress wouldn’t buy it. It would

be more expensive today . . . and is far more urgently needed. Anyone who has ever

been in the tower of a busy field or has ever ridden in the “office” of a commercial

plane during a takeoff or landing at a busy field knows what I mean. All our fields

are overloaded but anyone who goes in or out of San Diego or of O’Hare-Chicago

or-but why go on? Our airplanes are pretty durn wonderful . . . but our method of

handling

air traffic at fields is comparable to Manhattan with

out traffic lights. –

I shall continue to fly regularly for two reasons: 1) Mrs. Heinlein and I

hope to go out in a common disaster. 2) Consider the alternatives: AMTRAK (ugh!),

buses (two ughs!), and driving oneself. The latter is fine for short distances (OPEC

and Washington permitting) but, while in my younger days I drove across this

continent so many times that I’ve lost count, today I am no longer physically up to

such a trip even with a chauffeur.

But that totally-automated traffic control system ought to be built.

Expensive, yes-but what price do we place on a hundred dead passengers, a flight

crew, and a modern airliner? In the present state of the art in computers and in

radar neither the pilot nor the controller should be in the loop at landing or take

off; they should simply be alert, ready to override, because even the most perfect

machinery is subject to Murphy’s Law. But all routine (99.9%+)takeoffs and landings

should be made by computer.

If this pushes small private planes onto separate and smaller fields, so be

it. Bicycles do not belong on freeways. I hate to say that, as there is nothing more

fun than a light sports plane.

(Nothing that is not alive, I mean. Vive la difference!)

(On air traffic control I speak with a modicum of authority. I returned to

the aircraft industry for a short time in 1948 to research this subject, then wrote

an article aimed at the slicks: THE BILLION-DOLLAR EYE. I missed; it is still

unpublished.)

18. 1950 Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef

will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear.

1965 I’ll hedge number eighteen a little. Hunger is not now a problem in the

USA and need not be in the year 2000-but hunger is a world problem and would

at once become an acute problem for us if we were conquered.. . a distinct

possibility by 2000. Between our present status and that of subjugation lies a whole

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spectrum of political and economic possible shapes to the future under which we

would share the worldwide hunger to a greater or lesser extent. And the problem

grows. We can expect to have to feed around half a billion Americans circa year

2000-our present huge surpluses would then represent acute shortages even if we

never shipped a ton of wheat to India.

1980 It would now appear that the USA population in 2000 A.D. will be about

270,000,000 instead of 500,000,000. I have been collecting clippings on demography

for forty years; all that the projections have in common is that all of them are

wrong. Even that figure of 270,000,000 may be too high; today the only reason our

population continues to increase is that we oldsters are living longer; our current

birthrate is not sufficient even to replace the parent generation.

19. 1950 Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will “Civilization” be

destroyed.

1965 I stand by prediction number nineteen.

1980 I still stand by prediction number nineteen. There will be wars and we