SF occupies a fundamental place in our cultural, imaginative, technological, and economic lives. Who hasn't heard of, dreamed of: space travel, unusual life forms, lasers, robotics, other earth-like planets... no wait, those known quantities were first conceived of and explored in science fiction--so let's go with time travel, FTL, transcendent beings, self-aware artificial intelligence, and on and on--Imagination reflected in new characters, stories, concepts, circumstances, solutions, and heroes. And the "intellectual property" underlying these works in whatever form, particularly movies, is one of America's largest economic and cultural exports. A half-hearted informal day on Assimov’s birthday (when?) doesn’t cut it. "In order for this genre, a National Day of Recognition is" –Yoda



