The Next Fifty Years in Space
In 1976 the British astronomer, broadcaster and prolific author Patrick Moore published a book with the intriguing title The Next Fifty Years in Space. I was twelve years old at the time and an enthusiastic amateur astronomer. I had already read a number of Moore’s works but it was only in 1979 that I received a copy of this particular book as a Christmas present. Thanks to Andrew Farmer’s evocative illustration on the dust jacket, it looked more like the latest piece of science fiction by Arthur C Clarke than a serious book about science and technology. I was sold when I read the blurb on the back cover:
No one is better qualified than Patrick Moore to assess mankind’s future in space, in what could prove the most significant years in the whole of human history.
It is impossible for someone born in the 21st century to appreciate just how excited people of my generation were at the unimaginable prospects that seemed to be opening up before mankind. Within twenty years of the launch of Sputnik the Russians and Americans had set record after record in their Space Race, culminating in the Apollo Moon landings in the late sixties and early seventies. In 1979 it was easy for a teenager like me to assume that he would live to see hotels on the Moon and cities on Mars. (This was long before anyone seriously cast doubt on any of these achievements. For argument’s sake, I am going to assume in this series of articles that NASA and the Soviet Union did everything they ever claimed to have done.)
Patrick Moore’s The Next Fifty Years in Space has probably been long out of print, but I still have the copy that I unwrapped on Christmas Day 1979. Over the decades most of the books in my library have been scattered to the four winds, but I always held on to this particular volume―with the vague intention of one day rereading it and seeing how well Moore’s predictions held up. With the arrival of 2026 his Next Fifty Years have finally come to an end. This is the perfect time to dust off his book and see just how well his predictions have been borne out by time.
Dust Jacket
The laconic blurb on the back of the book is accompanied by a slightly longer note on the inside flap of the dust jacket:
Where is Mankind going? The answer: “Into space”. During the past twenty years, the concept of interplanetary travel has changed from the wild dream of a few fanatics into a project which affects us all. Men have reached the Moon; space stations have been set up; automatic probes have been to the planets Venus and Mars, and even penetrated the outer reaches of the Solar System.
This is only the beginning, and there can be little doubt that the progress to be made during the next five decades will dwarf all that has gone before. The prospects are almost unlimited. By A.D. 2000 we will not have reached the stars, but we will have become much more used to space terms than we are today. There may be advanced bases on the Moon, and certainly there will be complicated orbital stations which will send back information to the benefit of us all; some of them will have permanent crews. As for Mars ... it is possible that the Red Planet, too, will have been reached, and we should definitely have cleared up the age-old problem as to whether any form of life exists there.
Back in the 1940s, some writers were making forecasts as to what would have happened by the 1970s. One of these was Patrick Moore, whose predictions were along the right lines even though, as he is the first to admit, progress has been even more rapid than he expected. In this new book he again looks forward―to the coming fifty years, which may well be the most significant in the whole history of mankind. We have seen the start of the Space Age; what lies ahead we cannot yet tell―but we can at least make some educated speculations. At all events, it will be exciting, and in his absorbing new book this excitement is brought out to the full.
For the sake of completeness, I might as well quote the biographical note that accompanies a portrait of Patrick Moore on the corresponding flap of the dust jacket:
Patrick Moore was born in 1923. During the war he served as an officer in the R.A.F. (Bomber Command navigator) and since 1952 has been engaged in writing as well as in astronomical research. He has his private observatory at Selsey in Sussex. His main studies have been in connection with the Moon and planets, but he was also an early member of the British Interplanetary Society. Other interests: cricket, chess, music.
Moore began to present the monthly television programme The Sky at Night on the BBC on 24 April 1957―almost six months before the launch of Sputnik 1―and continued to present it every month until his retirement on 7 January 2013, making it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in history. Over the course of these fifty-five years he also wrote over fifty books on astronomy, and edited the annual Yearbook of Astronomy. This is not to mention his activity as a composer and writer of fiction.
The Next Fifty Years in Space came out in 1976, by which time Moore had already published at least twenty books. It is not a weighty tome. Its 144 pages comprise twelve chapters―the first a prologue and the last a summary―and a brief index. There are thirty-three photographs and illustrations, seventeen in colour and sixteen black-and-white. The illustrations are by Andrew Farmer. The book is dedicated to Barney D’Abbs, Who sees the future as I see it―and whose glimpses ahead have helped my own! I have no idea who Barney D’Abbs is.
And finally, Patrick Moore’s brief foreword:
Making forecasts is always dangerous, particularly in a fast-developing subject such as astronautics. Yet there is no harm in speculating, and this is what I have tried to do. Only time will tell whether I am right or whether I am grotesquely wrong!
I must express my most grateful thanks to my friend of many years, William Luscombe, without whose encouragement the book would not have been written, and who must surely be an author’s ideal publisher.
Time does have a habit of making monkeys of us all, especially those who dare to make predictions.
And that’s a good a place to stop before the next stage of our journey.
References
- Patrick Moore, The Next Fifty Years in Space, With Drawings by Andrew Farmer, William Luscombe Publisher Limited, The Mitchell Beazley Group, Artists House, London (1976)
Image Credits
- The Next Fifty Years in Space: William Luscombe publisher Limited, Andrew Farmer (illustrator), foyled-again (photographer), Fair Use
- Patrick Moore: Anonymous Photograph, Fair Use
- Patrick Moore at Birr Castle, County Offaly, in 1967: © BBC/The Sky at Night, Fair Use
