Looking back, we can see that far from extending for ever into the future, the space age lasted for scarcely fifteen years: from Sputnik I and Gagarin’s first flight in 1961, to the last Skylab mission in 1974 — and the first splashdown, significantly, not to be shown on television. After a casual glance at the sky, people turned around and went indoors.

During the past fifteen years the strongest currents in our lives have been flowing in the opposite direction altogether, carrying us ever deeper into the exploration not of outer but of inner space.

J. G. Ballard "The Future of the Future" (1977)