My most recent New York Times Magazine mini-column concerns Neal Stephenson’s — and NASA’s — efforts to encourage scientific and technological innovation through speculative fiction.
See also Stephenson’s “Innovation Starvation” speech, NASA’s partnership with TOR Books, Arthur C. Clarke’s predictions for the future (made in 1964), Isaac Asimov’s Visions of the Future (he starts speaking at 6:45 of part 1, above; here are parts 2, 3, and 4), and Asimov on the Golden Age of Science Fiction.