But if technologies once found only in SF do sometimes become real they do not, in so doing, always cease to be science fictional. Science fiction is often seen as an anticipation – a fiction peculiarly expected to graduate into fact. When they later moved to Huntsville, they took with them not just their know‑how but also Lang’s anticipation-quickening innovation of counting down the seconds before the rocket’s launch. Some of the engineers who advised Fritz Lang on his 1929 film, Frau im Mond went on to develop the first rocket capable of reaching space, Germany’s V-2. Our imagined moon has long inspired fear, excitement, hubris and political ambition – fact and myth, science and science fiction have always intertwined. One of the clearest reasons he gave for this new commitment was that China had “revealed their ambition to seize the lunar strategic high ground”. On 26 March vice-president Mike Pence told an audience at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama: “The first woman and the next man on the moon will both be American astronauts, launched by American rockets, from American soil.” He challenged Nasa to make the first of these crewed missions by 2024. SpaceX founder Elon Musk believes it is vital for humans to become a multiplanetary species.
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