Star gazing is the new rock n roll according to the UK News, largely as a result of Prof. Brian Cox, ex-member of D-Ream and TV cosmologist extroadinaire. With thousands of arnchair astronomers scouring the heavens, a member of the public even found a brand new planet last week. Are we on the cusp of a new space craze, with the promise of a whole new generation of space toys in the shops? Or will it take a Mars landing to do it? What do you think?
It may be that talk of extrasolar planets might lead to more alien-creature type toy lines, but that would disappear immediately if actual evidence of extraterrestrial life were discovered, even microbial life. Life on another world would become too real; people wouldn't feel as comfortable making up fantasies about it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the popularity of astronomy and cosmology would lead to a resurgence of interest in futuristic space vehicle toys. What might do that is continued success by SpaceX and other private space travel. But the kinds of toys we'd see might be closer in spirit to toy dump trucks and cement mixers and cranes and fire trucks than to anything purely fanciful. Space work would be real, so it would be more like playing at being a construction worker or fireman.
At a stretch, I could just imagine a line of toys similar to the way Major Matt Mason first started out: firmly based in real present-day prototypes and intended to be realistic futurism. But that might be pure wishful thinking on my part!
I agree with Richard.
ReplyDeleteAt most, there might be more educational toys (which is no bad thing), but not the kinds of toys which you long for, Woodsy. Which is a pity.
Such toys are only likely to come from SF films, and those would be restricted to designs in those films (or possibly whatever they had been based upon).
Sigh.
possibly, because space has been probed and examined and theorised upon, that original sense of wonder has gone. That 'what if ?' wow factor is missing now as we've walked on the moon, you can view the martian terrain via a webcam online and inspect the surface of the moon via high res photos from the comfort of your armchair, buy meteorites and space food on ebay and track satellites on your iphone. In all this, you cant ever find the real little green men and because of this, i think space has become dull and uninteresting now to the general public. Its a shame.
ReplyDeleteMaybe our ongoing recesssion is making people turn to less materialistic aspects of life. Stargazing can be done cheaply with just a pair of eyes or even just a pair of binoculars. Maybe all the new technology is also helping make it more accessible to more people in new ways like galaxy scanning. Maybe this technology, especially as it gets ever better, combined with a Mars Landing of some kind, will propel space into the public eye again and in particular, kids. I hope so anyway.
ReplyDeleteAs for toys, I keep checking the discount shops for cool cheap space stuff and occassionally visit Toys R Us and Toymaster for a look at the mainstream more expensive playthings. I'm hoping to find a boxed plastic Titan Probe one day should they ever make one!