A tip of the hat, apacheman, from one true SF fan to another. Mind you, Byrd outranks both of us, since she obviously writes the stuff for a living... we've probably both read her. If James Tiptree were still alive, I'd have said... well, never mind. Don't want to start any conspiracy theories, not here on ATS.
Well, anyway.
First of all, let me say that I completely agree that SF is influential among people - scientists, most of all - who then influence society in their turn. The technology aspect, which you dealt with in some detail, is the most salient part of that. However, the very idea of projecting trends into the future in order to get some idea of what might be, which underpins the work of every think-tank nowadays, first gained currency in science fiction. And the best science-fiction of all has always been that which dealt with the social and personal consequences of science and technology.
However, I feel that you overstate the influence of SF in the post that I'm replying to. SF was concerned with hard metal technologies (for the most part) from Victorian times up until the 1950s - because, for most of that period, hard metal - engineers' wank, if you will - was where society's head was at. In the Sixties it became all sociological and psychological because those were the 'sciences' (not actually sciences at all) that captured the Zeitgeist, that were hot at the time. In the Seventies (remember, they called it the Me Generation) everybody was into self-actualization and tapping their inner spiritual potential, and SF became woolly and mystical and fantastical accordingly. In the Eighties it became all consumer-tech (Gibson et al.) and in the Nineties it died, more or less, because real life had overtaken it.
What I'm saying here is that SF, like all art, holds a mirror up to life; it reflects social trends and popular folklore. It does not drive or shape them, as you suggest.
Science-fiction is gone from us now, while we take a break from anticipating the future in order to assimilate the present. Maybe it will come back, maybe it won't.
Clifford D. Simak, eh? Now there's a fairly esoteric name to drop in these barbaric days.
A few particular quibbles:
I think NASA went downhill when the wimpy robotics guys won the argument over manned space flight versus robotics... they were wrong: it wasn't cheaper, and you didn't get more and better science out of it.
Whoa there, big boy. I don't know if you've been following, but we've got a whole lot more (and better) science out of unmanned missions than we have out of manned ones. I have two words for you: Mars. Rover. Here's two more: Hubble. Chandra. I can offer a few more words; I guess most of us can. Cheaper, too.
But the whole world would mobilize to save a human crew.
Fortunately, in the absence of a human crew, the whole world doesn't have to mobilize. That's an advantage right there.
Anyway, the difference between manned and unmanned missions will become pretty meaningless in time (soon) to come. Telemetry and the bioelectronic interface will improve to the point where the guy operating the rover pretty much becomes the rover (time-lags excepted). Audiences around the world will probably share the experience too, though of course they won't share the operator's control over the machine.
What passes for SF in the current time reflects this disappointment and lack of engagement on the vast space frontier... writers' imaginations are stunted and limited to shallow explorations of old cultural mythologies: pretty infertile ground for true SF.
Let's not forget that SF is only a branch of a big, big tree called literature.
You're right: the times aren't good for science fiction. But the reason has nothing to do with our increasing reluctance to pull multibillion-dollar John Wayne stunts on the High Frontier. It has to do with the fact that science, for the time being at least, has outrun fiction. This isn't because we live in a time of particular scientific ferment but in a time - just after a period of intense scientific ferment - when the focus is on making money out of scientific discoveries by making them familiar and useful to consumers. Science fiction? We buy it down the supermarket these days.
) I think these wathcers or vistors are challenged by our imagination and possibly even curiously amazed? idk 
