Routine

As I was leaving for work, I turned off the TV as they were starting a story about the shuttle Discovery docking with the ISS. As I walked out the door, it struck me how news that our space shuttle is docking with the space station seemed ordinary.

We have a space station. A permanently-manned outpost whizzing around the Earth something like 7 times a day (remember when just to make it around the Earth was an extrordinary feat requiring years and years of travel?). That's pretty cool, even if it is rather small. Perhaps it is boring because it's just a small outpost - not like a booming port city, but an outpost.

But it is in the nature of exploration for outposts to become larger, growing from a destination to a point for embarking on travel to what like beyond. St. Louis was once the edge of civilization - the Gateway to the West. Now, it's considered Midwest, or even East.

I wonder what it will be like 100 years from now. Probably nothing like we can expect - as I doubt that in 1906 our world today was in the minds of the most incredible visionaries.