Thunderbirds at 60: Predicting the Future Is Hard!

Sean Connick | Published: 17th July 2025

Sixty years ago, Thunderbirds rocketed onto our screens in a blaze of explosions and some of the most iconic machines in culture. It imagined a sleek, thrilling future where international rescue missions were conducted by dashing brothers, pink luxury cars took to the skies, and everything that mattered beeped, flashed, or launched vertically.

It’s now 2025. And while we have achieved a few of those dazzling dreams (video calls, drones, personal AI), much of what Thunderbirds predicted still exists only in beautifully puppeteered fantasy. But here’s the twist: this isn’t a critique of Thunderbirds. Far from it. This is a celebration of how astonishingly hard it is, even with the best creative minds, to imagine what the future will actually be like.

Because if the Thunderbirds couldn’t get it completely right, what chance do the rest of us have?

Video Calling: The Crystal Ball Was a Bit Foggy, But Close

Let’s start with one of the show’s eerily accurate predictions: video calls. In Thunderbirds, characters use “Telecall” booths equipped with “Phonavision” to chat in real time with full audio and visual fidelity. It was 1965’s answer to FaceTime, only instead of holding a phone, you stepped into a sort of telephone confessional box, like making a call from inside a dishwasher.

It wasn’t portable, but it was close. A genuine forecast of how communication would evolve, except now, of course, we video chat from the bus, in the kitchen, or in our pajamas, without the need to be locked inside a glowing booth the size of a broom cupboard.

Still, points for concept. A win for the Thunderbirds vision.

FAB 1, Flying Cars and Hypersonic Daydreams

One of the standout stars of the series was Lady Penelope’s FAB 1, a majestic pink Rolls-Royce with bulletproof windows, elegant lines, and the ability to make video and phone calls from the back seat. Despite its glamorous image and gadget-packed dashboard, the original FAB 1 couldn’t actually fly, although later versions in remakes would give it wings.

Still, it symbolized the era’s fascination with stylish, gadget-laden transport. Flying cars were everywhere in futuristic fiction, and Thunderbirds was no exception. After all, who wouldn’t want to skip traffic jams and arrive at a cocktail party via a vehicle that takes its orders by intercom?

Today, we’re still working on flying cars. They technically exist. The Klein Vision AirCar has completed test flights, and multiple startups are chasing the dream, but none of us are commuting to work like Lady Penelope. And certainly not with a chauffeur like Parker operating onboard espresso and surveillance equipment.

Then there’s the Fireflash, a hypersonic jetliner that travels at Mach 6. In 2025, we still haven’t revived Concorde-level supersonic travel, let alone reached Mach 6. Airlines today are more likely to offer recycled air and a biscuit than intercontinental journeys at rocket speed.

Again, the vision was ambitious. Reality has not cooperated. The future takes its sweet time.

The Robot Revolution That Wasn’t (Yet)

Many assume Thunderbirds was all about pilots and rockets, and mostly, it was. But let’s not forget Braman, the series’ one true robot. Created by Brains, Braman was a walking computer. Clever, logical, even a little philosophical. He helped with calculations, solved problems faster than humans, and had a personality to boot.

He was one of the first sci-fi robots who wasn’t trying to kill you. A gentle, thinking machine, which now feels startlingly close to our current conversations around AI, chatbots, and digital companions.

And yet, Braman was a rarity in the Thunderbirds world. Most tech was mechanical, analog, and completely devoid of automation. Every button had to be pressed by a human hand. No one ever shouted, “Hey Thunderbird 2, launch yourself!” into the void and expected Alexa to respond. The idea of machine autonomy, of AI acting independently, was largely absent.

In other words, Thunderbirds predicted talking computers and helpful robots, sort of, but didn’t fully anticipate just how far automation would go or how integral it would become to everyday life.

Ed-Tech Futures: Still Waiting for the Jetpack Curriculum

So what does all this mean for us today, especially in digital education?

Well, it’s a humbling reminder. If Gerry Anderson’s team, with their limitless imagination and TV wizardry, couldn’t fully foresee the shape of 21st-century technology, then we should all be cautious when forecasting the future of learning.

In the 1990s, some educators thought virtual reality would dominate classrooms by 2010. In the 2010s, MOOCs were heralded as the end of traditional universities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning scaled overnight. And yet we still rely on basic video conferencing, shared documents, and good old-fashioned exams.

Where are the AI tutors for every child? Where are the neural implants that download Shakespeare directly into your brain? Where’s the educational equivalent of Thunderbird 5, monitoring all global learning in real-time?

They might still come. Or maybe something else, completely unexpected, will arrive instead. Just as smartphones, TikTok, and YouTube tutorials blindsided the previous generation of futurists.

Respecting the Imagination While Accepting the Chaos

What Thunderbirds reminds us, especially as it turns 60, is that imagination is not prophecy. It's aspiration. It gives us visions to aim for, to surpass, or to quietly ignore when reality decides to take a left turn.

Yes, some of their predictions now seem delightfully quaint. Nuclear-powered passenger jets. Rockets stored in swimming pools. Every lever the size of a baguette. But the spirit of the show, optimism, ingenuity, heroism powered by technology, still resonates.

And their failures? They aren't failures at all. They’re a tribute to how impossibly complex the future is. A future shaped not just by science, but by economics, politics, randomness, and yes, even puppets.

So here’s to the Thunderbirds, the Tracy family, Brains, Braman, and that gloriously impractical pink Rolls-Royce. You tried to show us the future. You got a few things uncannily right. You got others hilariously wrong.

But above all, you reminded us that predicting the future isn’t just hard. It’s practically science fiction.

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