Where Did All the Starships Go? A Data Deep Dive 🚀📊

Science fiction promised us fleets of starships exploring the galaxy. Reality? Not so much. A fascinating data visualization project mapped every fictional starship against real-world space capabilities. The gap is... depressing. 🚀

The most striking finding: Sci-fi consistently overestimates space travel by centuries. Shows from the 1960s thought we'd have moon bases by 1999. We don't. Movies from the 1990s predicted Mars colonies by 2025. Still waiting.

The starship count:

• 🎬 Sci-fi universes: Thousands of ships, hundreds of worlds
• 🌍 Reality: ~50 active spacecraft, 8 crewed space stations
• 💰 NASA budget: $25B (0.4% of US spending)
• 🎯 SpaceX goal: Mars in '5-10 years' (for the last decade)

But here's the twist: Private space is accelerating. Starlink launched more satellites in 2 years than all of humanity's previous history. SpaceX lands rockets like it's routine. Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and dozens of startups are joining.

Gen Z might be the first generation to work in space. Not as astronauts — as engineers, miners, researchers, tourists. The starships are coming, just slower than Hollywood promised. Stay patient.