0191-9067/83 $3.00 + .00 Copyright ® 1984 SUNSAT Energy Council SPACE 2020 NANCY WOOD The Space Foundation P.O. Box 58501 Houston, Texas 77058 Basic Assumptions • no nuclear devastation • no global tyrannical dynasties • no visitations from extraterrestrials • no ecological castastrophies beyond the normal machinations of nature SCENARIO It is the year 2020 and the canopy of space is actively used by industry to enhance life on the planet. Space industrialization has benefited from three enabling factors which emerged in the late 1980s. (1) A hefty tax incentive program for space related industry, part of President Barbara Jordon’s bold plan to boost the American economy so as to ensure full employment of women and minorities who made up her voting constituency. (2) Generous and consistent private investment in innovative research and development of the advanced technologies leading toward the use of resources and energy from space. Key Japanese CEOs from American industries like Mitsubishi/Marietta and Asahi/Aerospace initiated the effort and created a snowball effect. (3) A national political mandate for tapping wealth from space. In the 1980s it became clear that the enormous bulge in populations charts (baby boom births from the post World War II decade) would reach retirement age in the decade of 2010 and 2020 and require a massive flow of benefits drawn from a smaller and economically pressed work force. This led to a national demand for space industry to create the necessary wealth to fill those needs and to forestall social chaos and intergenera- tional conflict. Once the goal of space industrialization was clearly defined and perceived as necessary to serve humanitarian needs, funding freed, creative design work flowed and new technologies emerged. Since the onset of the David Hannah propulsion system and its cost effective transport, a growing neighborhood of spaceports has blossomed on the equator. The larger ones have a sister city relationship with the moonport nearest the lunar equator. Other moon base operations are scattered and on varied terrain (lunain?). A large observatory flourishes on the back side of the moon. In other spots mining operations excavate and haul tons of ore to the central processing plant. Lunar plants produce electronic devices, fiber and foam compositions and panels for a satellite
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