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.