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G·奥涅尔(Gerard O′Neill)对于未来有些想法。这些想法包括园顶城市、自动导航车、轨道工厂和空间移民。奥涅尔并非具有千里眼的超人,他是普林斯顿大学的一位教授和空间研究协会的主席,这协会是为空间生产提供研究资金的组织。他坚持认为,在他的新著2081中所描绘的奇妙未来,都是直接从现代技术孕育出来的。正是由于这种幻想家与现实主义者的结合,使得奥涅尔成了美国最受尊崇的未来学家之一。但是现在,奥涅尔却陷入了忧虑:忧虑政治可能阻碍着他所展望的进步,担心其他国家可能领先美国,进入未来。我同奥涅尔的第一次交谈是在由曼哈顿去纽约肯尼迪机场的汽车里进行的,当时大雨滂沱,路上车辆络绎不绝,15英里的路程用了两个多小时。我准备听取对未来的不同预见。
Gerard O’Neill has some ideas for the future. These ideas include the park-top city, automated guided vehicles, track factories and space immigrants. O’Neill is not a clairvoyant Superman. He is a professor at Princeton University and chairman of the Space Research Association, an organization that provides research funding for space production. He insisted that the wonderful future depicted in his new book 2081 was born directly from modern technology. It is because of the combination of this visionary and realist that O’Neill became one of America’s most admired futurists. But for now, O’Neill is caught in anxiety: worrying about politics may hinder the progress he is looking forward to, fearing that other nations may lead the United States into the future. My first conversation with O’Neill was in a car traveling from Manhattan to New York’s Kennedy Airport, when there was heavy rain, and an endless stream of vehicles took 15 miles to take more than two hours. I am prepared to listen to different visions of the future.