SCIENCE FICTION AND THE GREAT UNKNOWN; HISTORY SHOWS TV SHOWS, MOVIES WERE ON THE RIGHT TRACK.

Byline: Stephen Lynch Orange County Register

Maybe you missed it, but early this year, scientists in Illinois created the first artificial intelligence, a computer named HAL.

This happened, of course, after a group of genetically engineered supermen was defeated in a world war. Then New York was turned into a maximum security prison.

And today - Oct. 16, 1997 - the Jupiter II spacecraft will launch the first colonizers of the Alpha Centauri system, the Robinson family.

Welcome to the future.

The future, that is, predicted by popular science-fiction movies and television shows; respectively, ``2001: A Space Odyssey,'' ``Star Trek,'' ``Escape From New York'' and ``Lost in Space.'' A little more than 30 years ago, the creators of these stories peered into the 1990s, forecasting artificial intelligence, interstellar travel and genetic engineering. (Un)fortunately, they didn't come true.

Or did they?

Certainly, our personal computer isn't locking us out of the house, and space colonists aren't fighting giant vegetables, but elements of these fantasies have come to pass. Sheep have been cloned. Evidence of life was found on Mars. A computer named Deep Blue beat the human world champion at chess. People live on a space station - albeit a crumbling one.

What made those shows compelling in the first place makes them intriguing today. They're almost believeable.

``Good science fiction has to have an element of truth,'' says John Carpenter, director of ``Escape From New York.'' ``There's something about it you have to believe.''

So while you may not buy that Manhattan can be walled off and turned into a penitentiary, the movie did predict a rise in violent crime and an explosion in prison populations.

And though it's a sure bet no Jupiter II is preparing for launch today, science-fiction aficionados say it could have happened.

``President Kennedy inspired this country to put a man on the moon ... and we did it,'' says Bill Mumy, who played Will Robinson on ``Lost in Space.'' ``Stretching that concept a bit to assume that we could send a group of people to another world within 30 some years was not too far-fetched.''

In fact, Mumy adds, ``If we had continued to finance the space program with the energy and enthusiasm we did in the '60s, we certainly could have accomplished that by now.''

Which isn't to say our pop-culture crystal balls are clear. Science fiction didn't predict microelectronics; the sheer heft of the computers in ``2001'' seems comical.

And the silver jumpsuits of ``Lost in Space'' are hardly the height of style.

``One of the things about science fiction is that sometimes people assume the past doesn't exist,'' says J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the television series ``Babylon 5.'' ``The fashion we have now dates back hundreds of years. Why would it suddenly be silver spacesuits?''

Such are the pitfalls, and the promise, of modern science fiction. They can show us a time we may live to see but risk looking silly in the process.

Early works of science fiction - such as H.G. Wells' ``The Time Machine'' - avoided this by setting their plots something like ``10,000 years in the future,'' a ridiculous period more mystical than scientific.

But as mechanics and aircraft progressed, writers turned to the relatively near future. George Orwell wondered where government control was heading in ``1984.'' Issues of overpopulation were tackled in ``Logan's Run'' and ``Lost in Space.'' The classic western was shifted to the unspoiled frontier of the universe in ``Space 1999'' and ``Star Trek.'' The ``cyberpunk'' fiction of the '80s and '90s often deals with dystopias only a decade down the road.

This proximity makes the shows even more exciting, fans say.

``Every week I was glued to the TV,'' says Terry Fitton, who owns a science fiction collectables shop in Yorba Linda called Monsters in Motion. ``Every little boy was. And I think (`Lost in Space') had a lasting impression on what we think of space.''

Legions of baby-boomer fans were similarly inspired by the shows they watched. Scientists by the droves cite science fiction as the impetus for their career choice.

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant Cambridge professor who theorizes about the beginnings of the universe, is such a fan of ``Star Trek'' that he lobbied for a guest appearance.

And so science finds a soul mate in science fiction. We may laugh at how outdated these old shows seem, but what's important is the inspiration, not the prescience.

``The goal of science fiction is to lift our eyes to the horizon,'' Straczynski says. ``To wonder about our universe. To wonder about whether our lives have meaning. If it does not do that, it has failed.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) The world has yet to see a computer that can rival HAL's humanlike qualities in ``2001: A Space Odyssey.''

(2) ``Star Trek'' explored unknown galaxies using the format from popular westerns.