[Sirius Lee]

“Wagon train to the stars” was the verbatim pitch Gene Roddenberry used to the network execs to get Star Trek on the air.

[brivette]

anyone remember ee doc smith and the gray lensmen?

[SC_Pete]

And now Obama has closed space. What outlet is left for the American, frontiering spirit now? Obama’s solution is to eradicate individualism.

[The Great RJ]

Prior to creating Star Trek, Gene Roddenbery wrote scripts for several TV Westerns

[Young Werther]

Dr Gerad K O'Neil wrote "The High Frontier The Human Conquest of Space" updated Turners Frontier thesis. He proposed that Space Exploration should be self funding.

He proposed that the Moon should be colonized just as the America's in the 15th to 19th centuries.

The lunar material would be used to build factories, mine lunar materials which would be launched into space where L-5 satellites/manuafacturing facilites would be built. You'll find a larger explanation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Oneill

He does look like Spack without the pointy ears!

Steve Jobs took a $535.00 space item off the shelf and created 30 million JOBS in the 20th century. All from a piece of space stuff that the government had no use for. Obama cancells the space program because he wants to improve education, create jobs and improve the GDP. To bad he doesn't understand the past!

[Young Werther]

1939 and Orson Welles broadcasst “War of the Worlds” on the radio as a Halloween Scary Treat. Unforunately the braodcast was incomplete in certain portions of NJ where the Martian Landing had supposedly occurred. Riots, Suicides and great commotioons occurred as the “Martians Walked towards New York City.
More damage than “Sandy”?

[Oztrich Boy]

Time and again American fiction would probe the new frontier of space carrying with it a cowboy mentality only now dressed up in a spacesuit instead of a stetson and carrying his trusty ray-gun instead of a colt.

Yes, this is exactly what Science Fiction is all about

[discostu]

We’ve had this discussion at the SF con I help put together (and we’re over due to have it again, gotta remember to get it on next year’s list). What it generally boils down to that the “frontier” structure gives you a few handy things from a story perspective:
you have a large unknown to work with, something with which the reader is unfamiliar so you can fill in whatever you want
you have isolation from support, when protagonists can call for the unlimited backup available in a “civilized” world you lose a lot of drama
it’s an environment we expect larger than life characters taking bold actions, ie heroes

Fiction outside of SF and westerns generally has to put things in place to cause those elements. From rainstorms knocking out phone lines and roads, to forests, to smart bad guys that force a situation support cannot enter. A frontier gives you all that for free.

[Professional Engineer]

bfl