Bobak Ferdowsi

Science fiction writers can be eerily prescient. Consider what John Brunner got right about our world in 2010, as described in his 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar: a world shaken up by terrorist attacks and school shootings, the near-abandonment of Detroit, a zeal for upgrading everything, including our bodies. When Isaac Asimov envisioned in 1964 what 2014 would be like, he described what we’ve come to know as satellite phones, Skype calls, and driverless cars.

I’m wearing a Hollywood disguise—a baseball cap and fake glasses (and my tee bears a picture of Bigfoot being beamed up by a flying saucer)—talking to two women dressed from head to toe in various metallic fabrics (including a cape), and beginning to wonder if I’m not as open-minded as I think. After all, these are the fourth and fifth people I’ve talked to today who believe aliens have visited Earth. I’m desperately trying not to leap in and tell them what I do for a living.

I have a weird idea. I want to put a Kindle in space. Not literally (or for literature)—instead, I want to take the technology of a Kindle’s E Ink screen and put it on the side of a spacecraft to help control temperature and maybe even do some basic navigation. It might be crazy. It could be brilliant. But space is tough. Satellites cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, have to operate for years, and must be reliable, since there’s no way to fix them in space.