2040-2049
timeline contents

2040-2045

• China's space program is rivalling NASA |

2040

• India's economy is rivalling that of China and the U.S. | • Fusion power is nearing commercial availability | • Deep ocean mining operations are widespread | • Less than two-thirds of the original Congo jungle remains standing | • Virtual telepathy is dominating personal communications | • Biorepository and genomic information systems are transforming healthcare | • Pollen counts have more than doubled | • Tobacco has been largely eradicated | • Life expectancy for cystic fibrosis reaches 70 | • Breakthroughs in carbon nanotube production | • Submarine exploration of Titan | • China's HSR network has been greatly expanded | • Completion of the Northeast Corridor high-speed rail route | • Completion of the Helsinki–Tallinn Tunnel | • All civil domestic aviation in Norway is electric | • A pan-European hydrogen network has emerged |

2041-2046

• Japan experiences a major volcanic eruption |

2041

• Oil spills in the Niger Delta have been cleaned up | • Orbital solar power is commercially feasible | • Launch of the Habitable Worlds Observatory | • Completion of the W350 tower in Tokyo | • Sound Transit 3 is completed in Washington | • Cases of lung cancer have spiked in New York |

2042-2067

• The majority of primate species are disappearing from the wild |

2042-2045

• Tanzanite reserves are depleted |

2042

• White people are a minority in the USA | • 3D bioprinting of human organs | • 16K virtual reality is mainstream | • NASA Uranus mission | • The Diary of Anne Frank enters the U.S. public domain | • The City of Trees project is completed in Manchester, England | • Older IBM mainframe clocks are overflowing |

2043

• The Ross Sea has lost 50% of its summer ice cover | • Slovenia closes down its only nuclear power plant | • The Chang'e-3 lander is shutting down |

2044

• The works of J.R.R. Tolkien enter the public domain | • The last veterans of WW2 are passing away | • A transglobal highway and rail network has emerged | • Five-year survival rates for bowel cancer are approaching 100% |

2045

• An inflection point for human-AI interactions | • 10% of crop production is from vertical farming | • Advances in LED and laser systems | • Homosexual discrimination has declined substantially | • Africa transitions to 100% electric car sales | • The Chūō Shinkansen high speed maglev route is complete | • Gulf Coast cities are being abandoned due to super hurricanes | • Tianwen‑4 flyby of Uranus | • Apollo 12's third stage returns to Earth | • Total solar eclipse in the USA | • The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is retired from service |

2045-2049

• Major extinctions of animal and plant life |

2046

• Close approach of the asteroid 2023 DW | • The UK state pension age has risen to 70 | • Angola is declared free of landmines | • Carbon pricing is ubiquitous worldwide |

2047

• South Korea's "mega chip cluster" is completed | • Launch of the Far-Infrared (FIR) Great Observatory | • Fully autonomous, intelligent military aircraft | • Unmanned probe to 2060 Chiron |

2048-2058

• Glacier volume in the Everest region has declined by half |

2048

• The Antarctic Treaty comes up for review | • King crabs are infesting Antarctic marine ecosystems | • Bionic eyes are perfected |

2049

• Global warming reaches 2°C | • Completion of China's Belt and Road Initiative | • The Dead Sea is drying up | • The effects of heat stress on labour capacity have doubled | • Neptune Odyssey makes orbital insertion | • The Boeing 747 is retired from service | • The Fukushima disaster is cleaned up |

2050-2059 »