Space is awesome, but it’s really far away. Of course, that’s the thought behind the introduction to each of the classic Star Trek television shows—there’s more in space to explore than we could ever reach. It seems unending. It probably is.
However, we’re a people who want to have at least some sense of connection to the realm of the far away, even if it’s just a photograph of a distance planet or star. But when we can see and touch and taste and experience something that we’ve been told has only been a dream or a unrealized concept, then our excitement grows and we can embrace the far away sooner than we imagine.
That’s what technology does for us. It gives us a tangible experience with the future.
Few imagined in the 1950s and 60s that we would ever become dependent on small electronic devices without vacuum tubes (i.e. electrical conductive components, for any millennials reading this). Now fifty years later, our palm-sized telephones have more computing power than a basement full of UNIVAC machines.
Technology has brought the final frontier to our doorstep. What was once science fiction in the world of Dick Tracy has now become a reality with the Apple watch. The promised video phone fifty years ago is now just old school thinking. Mobile technology, cloud computing, and even bio-technology is shaping our world—and our future.
Recently, a group of independent researchers in California called “biohackers” tested the effects of the chemical Clorin e6—a kind of chlorophyll found in deep sea fish—on healthy human eyes to improve low light vision. The “night vision” chemical was injected into a patient who demonstrated improved vision in low light at a distance of 50 meters.
“Biohacker” groups around the world are discovering other ways to wed technology with the human body, as NBC reported last year, implanting silicon chips in an arm, magnets in fingertips, and “ear buds” inside the ears. There seems to be no limit to what technology can do for us—and in us. Of course, it somehow sounds more reasonable when doctors prescribe pacemakers for heart patients.
Today’s IT professionals have at their fingertips (literally) not only the means to make our world better now by creating faster, more efficient, and more profitable applications for data in commerce, education, and healthcare, but they are constantly pushing the technology envelope to envision devices and processes that will significantly improve our lives in the future. And that’s why IT is more and more the backbone of every major industry.
Even space.