Science Fiction Contest: Deadline April 1 Do you write science fiction? You have a little over five weeks to the April 1st deadline for our Science Fiction Contest. Another name for science fiction is “speculative fiction.” What if meat could be made in a factory so we wouldn’t need to kill chickens, pigs, and cows to eat the meat we like? How might that change the world? In fact, lots of work is being done by scientists to grow meat in factory laboratories. So, it isn’t necessarily a wild science fiction fantasy. What if cars could drive themselves? Then what? What would that world look like? Well, lots of people would be out of a driving job! And as the driverless cars might be operated like a taxi company, or like Uber, most of us might end up just calling for a car when we need one. If we did that, then there wouldn’t be so many (or any) cars parked on streets. There would be too many parking lots so we could do something else with them. What would our lives be like? What kind world—good or bad—might you imagine with driverless cars? Everything you know about science and technology can be brought into the creation of a speculative fiction story. The is your chance to explore, “What if?” Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, just launched a powerful rocket. It is now already possible to imagine affordable rocket transport to the moon and to Mars. Well, what would that mean for us here on Earth? Would it make a difference? On Earth we have lots of trouble living peacefully all together. Could we make our space colonies reflect the best of who we humans are? Or, do you imagine that we’d mess up our space exploration, too? The Star Wars stories imagine a technologically advanced time in which fighting over power and control are still central to the story of advanced cultures, like ours. Is that what you imagine, too? Use what you know of science and technology to explore possible futures. I’ll remind you in a couple of weeks. You have five weeks, starting now. | 
Leave a Reply