I love SF but in retrospect SF as a genre has mostly predicted future scenarios that did not happen and pretty much missed the very future that forms the fabric of our daily existance. Yes, I know that SF is really 'speculative' fiction storytelling, but many commonly accepted paradigms of that era's SF failed to happen. Let's look back to pre-1960, a time where satellites existed and the transistor was already a commercial item.

Common Hard SF Themes That Did Not Happen by Early 21st Cen:
* Manned spaceflight to the planets, moonbases
* Nuclear Fusion power
* A population explosion greatly impacting society
* Limited or Worldwide Nuclear War (Thank God)
* Robots
* AI
* Flying Cars
* Cure for cancer
* Contact with or detection of aliens
* Substantive lifespan extension

(I'm ignoring stuff like time travel & teleportation which weren't expected or probable events in hard SF but were speculative fiction story tools)

Anticipated:
* 'Ray' weapons, blasters (lasers happened)
* Cellphones (Dick Tracy's wrist TV) Yet SF missed the societal impact completely
* Comsats
* Supercomputers

Unanticipated, Yet Affecting Us All:
* Biotechnology, the DNA revolution
* Nanotech (OK, it's really not here yet)
* The personal computer revolution
* The web, interconnecting PCs and accessible to all
* GPS

Your thoughts?