Comments on: Read about 2063 as imagined in 1963

Read about 2063 as imagined in 1963

jonson — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:24:09 -0800

In 1963, General Dynamics Astronautics asked politicians, scientists, and military commanders to speculate on the potential state of the world in 2063, recording all these speculations in a book, and sealing it in a time capsule that was lost during the demolition of the General Dynamics Astronautics building. Thankfully, the entirety of the book is available as a download thanks to the fine folks at Paleo-Future. Found Via.

By: jedicus

jedicus — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:33:16 -0800

Fascinating. From a brief perusal, I like that Edward Teller thought that nuclear explosives and ballistic missiles would be in common use for both space travel and general transportation. Also, Congressman James B. Utt? Seriously?

By: tellurian

tellurian — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:16:35 -0800

jedicus - Project Orion.

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:55:48 -0800

sealing it in a time capsule that was lost during the demolition of the General Dynamics Astronautics building Probably says more about the potential future state of the world than the time capsule would have done.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:52:18 -0800

I'm actually a little more interested in the story of how this time capsule got destroyed. Perhaps they just forgot about it, but I find it ironic that a company that had such visions of the future had its creation destroyed by the future incarnation of that company.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:52:28 -0800

And what ikkyu2 said!

By: Bathtub Bobsled

Bathtub Bobsled — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:57:50 -0800

I doubt they predicted their book was going to be freely available and widely ignored on ARPANET.

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:18:41 -0800

Hmm. Wonder who the three anonymous contributers were... and why they wanted to remain anonymous.

By: humannaire

humannaire — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:36:46 -0800

Why does the print version of a free book by General Dynamics cost $21.88 as "authored" (ie scanned in) by Matt Novak?

By: humannaire

humannaire — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:38:33 -0800

....especially since it is only 50 pages? Via lulu, such a book(let) can retail for less than $10 even with a couple bucks profit.

By: humannaire

humannaire — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:53:57 -0800

....oh jeez, I figured out why: The booklet was scanned into full-color documents before being turned into a pdf to upload as source copy at lulu. The idea must have been to capture the sepia tone pages and spot-color (red) page titles. Personally, I just needed the aesthetics of the tone of the writing.