The future ain't what it used to be

AppleTV’s “Hello, Tomorrow” makes me nostalgic for a future that never was.

The Vista cafe in “Hello, Tomorrow.” Source: AppleTV

I grew up in the 1960s, obsessed with space travel. I had astronauts performing spacewalks on my blankets and the curtains of my room. My favorite toy was a scale model of the Mercury capsule, with a space-suit-clad GI Joe as its sole occupant. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the Sea of Tranquility in July 1969, I was allowed to stay up and watch that grainy black and white transmission from the lunar surface along with a couple billion other people. It's one of the most indelible memories of my childhood.

I was convinced, as many of us were those days, that travel to the moon and beyond was no more than a decade or two away.

But the sleek gleaming future I was promised did not turn out to be the future that was delivered. No jetpacks, no human conveyor belts in the sky, no personal robot servants. And no vacations to the moon.

The reason I am going on about this now is a new show streaming on Apple TV that captures the future-that-never-came in gorgeous detail. "Hello, Tomorrow" is “Mad Men” meets “The Jetsons,” with a little “Glengarry Glen Ross” thrown in.

The show is about a crew of less-than-scrupulous sales people who persuade people to purchase timeshares on the moon. [1] But it all takes place in a world where the future arrived fully formed somewhere around 1959. There are the same boxy cars with voluptuous bumpers, only instead of rolling along the pavement they float on a cushion of air. All the menial jobs — waitress, bellman, postal carrier — are performed by robots, who look more like 1930s washing machines. There are video phones, but the flickering black and white images are displayed on cathode ray tubes, sitting on boxes lined with dials and toggle switches.

Video phone booth in “Hello Tomorrow.” Source: Metropolis.

It's Tomorrowland, but without Disney employees dressed like furries. But beneath the sunny retro future design is an undercurrent of despair. People are more than a little tired of life on earth. They yearn for something better. The moon sounds like as good an alternative as any. Sales shark Jack Billings (played with unctuous charm by Billy Crudup) takes advantage of this, with help from Hank Azaria, and a handful of others. Complications ensue. [2]

The show is like a postcard of the future that got lost in the mail for 60 years before reaching its destination. Watching it fills me with both comfort and a tremendous ache. Just looking at the vivid colors and sleek lines of mid-century design makes me absurdly happy; at the same time, I mourn a future that never was. [3]

Future Schlock

We expected a revolution in travel (jetpacks, flying cars, moon shuttles). What we got was a revolution in information. The ironic thing is, we might not even have the Internet if not for the space race.

When the USSR launched Sputnik into low earth orbit in October 1957, you could hear sphincters tightening all over Washington DC. It took the Eisenhower administration by complete surprise, and probably soiled more than a few BVDs at the Pentagon. Out of that panic came the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a covert research program designed to develop new technologies to help the US catch up with the Soviets. [4] One of its best-known projects was to establish a communications network where private research labs could communicate with government scientists, and vice versa.

Back then it was known as ARPAnet. Today we call it, “that f**king cesspool of half-baked conspiracy theories and unfiltered racist uncles,” aka the Internet.

Work on ARPAnet began in earnest in 1966, the same year the Gemini mission completed multiple low earth orbits, “Star Trek” debuted on NBC, and the first Tang-in-space commercials aired.

The first actual transmission of data across the network, a single word [5] sent at the blistering speed of 300 bits per second, occurred in October 1969, three months after the first moon landing. [6]

In other words, transportation got an enormous head start. But then it stalled, as we spent the last few decades trying to figure out what living in zero gravity does to humans [7]. And information zoomed ahead, for better and for worse.

Only now are we starting to see some of the things that were promised to us way back then – driverless cars, personal robots, commercial space flights – and that’s due almost entirely to changes wrought by the information revolution.

To Xfinity and beyond

There is a new mission to the moon coming, and NASA has learned a lot about marketing in the past 50 years. Check out this video:

Makes you want to sign on and suit up, doesn’t it? [8]

I will be watching the landing on YouTube, while arguing with idiots on Twitter, streaming my “Space Odyssey” playlist, and shopping for a replica of that Mercury capsule on eBay.

I suppose the future could have been worse.

Did you yearn for space travel in your youth? Would you take a trip now? Post your interplanetary vacation plans in the comments below.

[1] They literally promise people the moon. But do these timeshares actually exist? I’d tell you, but I’m not quite sure myself.

[2] The missing father, the lost son, the unfaithful husband, the guy with an addiction problem, etc. In other words, the usual drama shite.

[3] And, I suppose, the loss of childhood innocence.

[4] They later added “Defense” to the front of that acronym, making it DARPA.

[5] The word “LO.” It was supposed to be “LOGIN,” but the transmission crapped out before it finished. I still have that problem with my cable provider.

[6] I am willing to bet folding money that a fair amount of cannabis was consumed during this process. The Internet was built by hippies.

[7] Makes us slightly taller and significantly decreases bone density, among other things.

[8] Also makes me wonder what it’s like to break a hip in zero gravity.