Technology advances

Last night while watching VSauce, I was made aware of the rate of technological advancement in a way that I had never thought about before (of course, I did more research and added to the original germ of the idea.) I knew all these facts, but hadn't put them all together.

For all of the history of human kind, and probably well before historical times, we have imagined flight. But, for countless thousands of years no one ever got more than a few feet into the air (unless they jumped off a cliff.)

That was true until the first successful balloon flight in 1783. It then took another 120 years for the Wright Brothers to create a viable airplane (1903.) But here's the shocker - from the time of the Wright Brothers' first flight until Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969 was just 66 years.

In my mind the first flight at Kitty Hawk was ages ago. But, It wasn't really that long. According to Wikipedia, there are 43 people alive today that were born before Orville Wright took flight in a powered airplane on December 17, 1903. Meanwhile, I was alive when Armstrong made a "giant leap for mankind." On August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 became the first man made object to leave the solar system - 43 years after we got to the moon. If you are reading this anywhere near the time that I wrote it, you were probably alive when that happened.


Thousands of years of dreaming -> 120 years from balloon to airplane -> 66 years from airplane to moon walk -> 43 years from moon walk to leaving the solar system.

Wow.