Tuesday, December 28, 1999
1963 forecast for the end of century still reads like science fiction
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Larry R. Pike, chairman and CEO of Union Central Life, removes the faceplate of a time capsule from 1963 with predictions for 2000.
(Craig Ruttle photo)
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Once upon a time, they were predicting Nirvana in 2000.
Common cold cured. Traffic jams only a memory. Interstate auto travel clipping along at 500 mph, planes at 9,000 mph.
Those predictions were made in August 1963, when Union Central Life Insurance was building its new Forest Park headquarters and gathering forecasts for a time capsule to be opened Feb. 22, 2000, at the company's annual employee meeting.
The predictions, made by locally and nationally known business, science, educational and religious leaders, were supposed to give the '60s a preview of life 37 years later.
We're still sniffling. Traffic jams are still present. Cars and planes are going considerably slower than predicted.
With 2000 hovering and the capsule's opening less than two months away, it's time to revisit some of the predictions recounted at the time in The Cincinnati Enquirer and find out which came true. If not, why?
At the top of the list, one dead right, and one dead wrong:
Dead right: Cincinnati Bell President Bayard J. Kilgour Jr. was the only prognosticator who was 100 percent on the money when he predicted that by 2000 everyone would be walking around with telephones in their pockets.
Dead wrong: Dr. Johnson McGuire, University of Cincinnati medical researcher, predicted that life in 2000 would find the common cold under control.
“There has been some progress, but we're no where near there yet,” said Dr. Judith Feinberg, professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at UC's medical college.
“The problem with the common cold is that it isn't "common.' It's an enormously complex condition caused by hundreds of viruses. That large number makes a vaccine highly implausible.
A General Electric executive, the late James LaPierre, was right and wrong. He predicted we would all be flying around in disc-shaped personal transporters 1,000 feet above the street.
We're not, but we could be.
He also predicted planes would be traveling at 2,220 mph on transcontinental flights and 9,000 mph on intercontinental flights.
They're not, but they could be.
“The thing is, we have the technology to do all those things right now, but the question is why (should we)?” says GE executive Rick Kennedy. (The Concorde, the world's fastest commercial jet, cruises at 1,336 mph).
“Economically, it's not feasible. We could move a plane at 2,220 or 9,000 mph and get you there faster, but would anyone be willing to pay the extra money for the ticket? I don't think so.
“And the other thing, the thing Mr. LaPierre couldn't have foreseen, is the environment. No one thought about it then, but today, you get a plane flying at 40,000 feet at 9,000 mph and you're going to wreck the ozone. We're too conscious of the environment to let that happen anymore.”
Interplanetary travel
The same is true of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's prediction that space flight among the inner planets would be routine. It's not, but it could be.
“We do have the technology to go among the inner planets,” William Readdy in NASA's Office of Space Flight said. “I'm confident that if the mood of the country had continued as it was in Von Braun's day, we'd have colonies on the moon and regular flights to Mars.
“But then came Vietnam, unrest, social ills and our priorities changed. The emphasis shifted to our planet and how we function. ...
“Before it becomes feasible, we need the next breakthrough in propulsion technique, something that will cut the journey to a matter of months. Whatever that breakthrough is, it will happen within the next decade, so I guess Von Braun wasn't too far off.”
Mr. Von Braun also was pretty sure “the accurate and worldwide prediction of weather will be a fact and the control of the earth's climate and weather will be well under way.”
Not quite, says meteorologist Bri an Coniglio at the National Weather Service in Wilmington. “I'd say we're about 80 percent accurate on the two-day forecasts, dropping off to about 60 percent on the three-five day forecasts. We're certainly better than we were in '63 ... but we're still not 100 percent.
“And we're absolutely no closer to climate control now than we were then. Man accidentally influences the climate, of course, but that's not control. It's so far off, I don't even know if there are any studies of the subject going on right now.”
Energy sources
William Zimmer, president of Cincinnati Gas & Electric (Cinergy's predecessor), told people to watch for a new form of energy. Low-cost fossil fuels will be exhausted in 75 to 100 years, he said in '63, and half of the total electricity generated in the year 2000 will come from nuclear plants.
Could have been, says Cinergy's Steve Brash, if Three Mile Island hadn't happened. After the nuclear accident at the power plant there in 1979, new safety regulations and mandatory retrofitting made nuclear power so expensive it became prohibitive.
Today, coal continues to generate 56 percent of the nation's electricity; nuclear is 21 percent; the rest is a combination of gas, oil and hydroelectric power.
Auto executive Henry Ford II predicted “A high-speed, fully automatic system for automobile travel will be in operation and allow for automobile travel at 200 to 500 mph for inter-city travel.”
No one at Ford was available for comment, but Chuck Licari in General Motors' technical specialties division, said “those speeds simply won't happen, but an automated system already has. A couple years ago, we experimented with the "automated highway,' where the road was equipped with electronic studs that honed in on a radar sensing system in the car.
“So it was the electronic technology, not the driver, controlling the car. It was promising, but funding dried up and, as you know, we don't have it.
“But we could.”
Bottom line on life in the year 2000? We're going to continue to sniffle. No one's getting their own flying disc. And no one's tooling around at 500 mph.
At least not yet.
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