TV ANNOUNCER: How
far out can you get?
That's the big question
in television today,
and CBS has the big answer,
its fabulous new series
"Lost in Space".
NARRATOR: In 1965,
the CBS network
announced the
debut of what would
become television's
first prime-time
science-fiction series.
TV ANNOUNCER: Wouldn't Dad
like to use this gadget
to beat that thruway traffic?
NARRATOR: Set in the far
future of 1997, "Lost in Space"
told the story of a
family of space colonists
who become marooned
on an alien world.
It underscored America's
growing acceptance
that mankind's
future was not here
on Earth but out in the
vast reaches of the galaxy.
This trend continued when the
following year NBC premiered
"Star Trek", the epic saga of a
futuristic starship whose crew
is charged with
exploring the galaxy,
seeking out new life
and new civilizations,
and going where no man or
woman had ever gone before.
Interestingly,
both programs would
appear in America's
living rooms years
before mankind would even
step foot on the moon.
It is amazing that today
we are living in times where
only 40, 50 years
ago, people were
fantasizing about the future.
And here we are experiencing
that said future--
not all of it, but many things.
Where do we stand
50 years from now?
I think science fiction
is a part of disclosure.
Over time, science fiction
has become science fact.
NASA ANNOUNCER:
Ignition sequence start.
NARRATOR: Of course,
science fiction's role
in pre-envisioning what would
ultimately become the world's
science fact was nothing new.
But are many of today's
scientific wonders merely
the product of fertile
minds and wild imaginations,
or do they have their
origins elsewhere,
possibly light years away?
There's an interesting theory
the idea that certain profound
science-fiction writers may not
have just simply come up with
the ideas for their
stories on their own,
or they may have
thought they came
with the ideas on their own.
Perhaps there was an outside
force presenting it to them.
Have science-fiction
authors and writers been
inspired by extraterrestrials?
NARRATOR: Could
extraterrestrials
have given humanity
glimpses of its own future
through science fiction?
And if the creative
minds of the past
had been able to pre-envision
the incredible technologies
of the present day,
then should we also
regard the science
fiction of today
as a guide to where
mankind is headed next?
Where do we stand
50 years from now?
And if we're talking about
science fiction today,
one recurring theme
is what happens
if we gain the ability to
upload our consciousness
to some type of a computer?
Is it possible that our future
may lie in a digital realm?
I would not want my thoughts
to be uploaded to a computer
because then we
really become glass.
This planet will cease to
exist within two seconds
if we all know each
other's thoughts.
So there is a fine line we
have to walk between what
can and will ensure our
future and what can and will
be our assured annihilation.
NARRATOR: According to many
ancient-astronaut theorists,
the visions of a bleak future
as depicted in today's science
fiction could, if
realized, prove as perilous
as they once seemed profound.
But they also suggest that
the messages that mankind's
visionaries receive may not
be dire predictions as much
as they are warnings,
warnings intended to help
mankind avoid annihilation.
