So, this month, SciAm has Yuri Milner's Alpha Centauri kite swarm project
on the cover, and Jeff Bezos says this week he'll toss in some of his own money
(not to mention rocket hardware) to get a permanent base on a pole of the moon.
Meanwhile, Elon announces that two private individuals have booked a lunar loop
trip on his hardware, which is an interesting way to spend your money, considering
the hardware has never flown, much less to the moon. I can only imagine these guys
are facing imminent mortality, and figure fulfilling a lifelong ambition is now worth the
risk, as they have more money than remaining days.

We certainly live in interesting times, but you've probably already noticed that. ...I love
the talk that Isaac Asimov gave in 1975, about science fiction, prediction of the future,
and the era of the advent of the recognition that "progress" was a thing that was really
happening, and that the future would be sufficiently interesting that it would be a shame
to miss out on. It was archived by the CBC, and a section can be heard on this program:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/rewind/science-fiction-as-prophecy-1.3343951

The section I refer to starts at the 33 minute mark of the tape, but the whole snippet is
great, and starts at about the 29 minute mark. (Google doesn't seem to indicate any
other version of this, in text or otherwise).