WASHINGTON, DC – 31 August 2029 – In a NASA news conference, held on the lawn in front of the White House, NASA Executive Director John Schmidt ended four months of intense speculation and controversial media leaks with one word, “Life! We have found life on Enceladus.” Schmidt, normally renown for his stoic presence on Capital Hill, grinned like a school boy. On February 20th, the Jules Verne touched down on the surface of Saturn’s sixth largest moon. Enceladus is an icy world a fraction the size of Earth. With a diameter of roughly 310 miles, Enceladus is smaller than the United Kingdom.

After landing near the south pole of Enceladus, the Jules Verne released the Nautilus, which navigated less than 800 yards before starting its decent into the ice fields. The Nautilus used convection heat from its nuclear reactor to melt through the 22 miles of ice to reach the waters beneath the crust. After a three month decent, with ice refreezing above it, sealing the craft beneath the surface, the Nautilus emerged into an ocean teeming with microscopic life. Communication problems hampered the initial results, while scientific caution hampered any premature announcements, but, 55 days on, NASA have finally announced what everyone else was prepared to call at first glance, life exists on Enceladus. NASA have said these life forms are similar to what would have existed on Earth some 800 million years ago. The Chinese have immediately announced plans a manned mission to Enceladus so samples can be extracted and returned for examination on Earth, again raising concerns that the United States almost complete lack of manned space capabilities are becoming an issue of national security after the Chinese established the first moon base last year.

Coming fairly quickly on the heels of the discovery of life on Mars in 2027, combined with the discovery of an “Earth Two” less than twenty light years away, has given rise to a global feeling that the universe is literally teeming with life, but the question is, what kind of life is it? While the primitive lifeforms on Mars seem to share a basic DNA coding with Earth-bound life, from preliminary data, the Enceladus lifeforms don’t seem to share the same basic DNA building blocks as life on Earth. One thing is for sure, Enceladus has given research into the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life a boost. Enceladus will be a household name for decades to come.

BEIJING, CHINA – August 14, 2018. Ask most US citizens about China and Taiwan and they’ll tell you they’re two different countries, certainly that has been the position of the US State Department since the late 1940s, but their formal names betray a more subtle difference between the two. These countries are formally known as the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China, but which is which? Taiwan is the Republic of China and the China we know from trade disputes and phenomenal economic growth over the past three decades is the People’s Republic of China.

From the 1st of January 2020, though, all that will change. There will be one country, the People’s Democratic Republic of China. Yep, that’s right, in merging the two countries together they’ve decided to lengthen the formal name yet again. Although the term democratic will be largely symbolic for the first decade, as part of the reunification agreement the ruling communist party has agreed to continued elections within the state of Taiwan, with mainland elections for the Chinese Congress to commence in 2025. By 2030, the premier of China will be an elected official similar to the President of the United States.

US and European leaders have applauded the peaceful reunification of these countries, saying it represents a landmark in international relations and will bring peace and stability to the region. A referendum is still slated to be held in Taiwan regarding the process, but all reports seem to indicate…

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – March 14th, 2031 - Yesterday an elite force of Israeli commandos overran a Hezbollah stronghold on the Gaza Strip.  Eye witnesses say the Israeli soldiers performed like nothing they had ever seen.  The Hezbollah enclave was wiped from existence at the cost of one Israeli lightly wounded.

When asked about the ease of the battle, Israeli high command announced the existence of their augmented human project, stating “we already had the best.  Now we made them better.”

“We don’t remove body parts,” added the spokesman, Lt. Colonel Diane of the Israeli defense force.  “Careful integration of mechanical and electronic systems within the biological matrix make these soldiers, faster, stronger and more aware than their opponents. But they are still totally human.”  There is speculation fueled by witnessed events in Pakistan that the United States has already deployed this technology.  Could the new Army motto become “be all you can be, and we’ll make you better?”

OLYMPUS MONS – June 20th, 2075 – Less than twenty years after the first colonies were established on Mars, James O’Connor became the first man to win gold at the Martian Olympics. O’Connor ran the 100M in a blistering 7.2 seconds, using his trademark leaning-tower run, striding forward at angles that would have had him falling on his face on Earth. O’Connor, barely breaking a sweat in the cool aerodome located in the caldera of Olympus Mons, was gracious in victory, thanking his competitors for the challenge. Standing a towering eight-foot seven inches, the first generation Martian, with his lanky limbs and muscular frame, dwarfed the Earth delegates present for the medal ceremony.

Medical opinion is that elongated Martian limbs are not the result of genetic changes, but are the result of the complexity interrelationship between epigenetics and the low-gravity environment on Mars, allowing bone sequences to extend naturally. There is doubt, however, whether Martian-born humans would ever be able to visit the Earth with its more intense gravity.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – Sept 14th, 2086 – With the death earlier this morning of Gladis Westery of Manchester, England, the world population moved symbolically below the seven billion mark. The last time the world population was this low, the year was 2014, a song recorded by a human topped the charts, and vehicles were relegated to the ground.

LOS ANGELES – August 30, 2023 – In a move that rocked several industries, Google and Apple announced today a sweeping partnership and unveiled the iAndroid self-driving car, powered by Android OS 8.3. At a full blown party and press reception attended by celebrities in Tinsel Town, Stevie Wonder gleefully told his car to “drive me home” and was broadcast over the Internet singing ‘I just called to say I love you’ to longtime Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The move was widely reported as a counter to the aggressive return of Bill Gates to the helm of the merger between Microsoft and Honda last year.

The  iAndroid and other self-driving technologies are set to revolutionize the way we all drive, with pundits predicting large drops in both highway fatalities as well as improved fuel economies. We all sincerely hope that the blue screen of death is truly a thing of the past.

OSAKA, JAPAN – June 18th, 2055 – They were at one time the monarchs of the seas, hauling the life blood of industry and transportation of goods to the first world.  Then came fusion power and nano lubricants, and hydrogen fuels produced through hydrolysis, and oil has continued to drop as a commodity for shipment.  Sales fell and third world countries that had grown rich off the industrial powers were now out in the cold, and over the last few decades the giants of sea disappeared.  Until all that was left was the largest of them all, the six hundred thousand ton Adventure II which was brought into dry dock to be dismantled today.  Now the era of the supertanker is officially at an end, as the last of the giants is broken up for scrap in the Osaka shipyard which built the monster.

With its end the former OPEC nations again find themselves on the outside looking in.