2063 A.D. Book (1963)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 6:11PM Due to popular demand, I have uploaded a free PDF of the book 2063 A.D. in its entirety. To purchase a print copy of the book you can find it at my Lulu storefront.
For those just joining us, 2063 A.D. was a book published in 1963 by General Dynamics Astronautics. The book asked politicians, military commanders and scientists to speculate as to where humanity would be, a hundred years hence, in the great push towards space.
A copy of the limited print book (only 200 are believed to have been produced) was included in the time capsule at General Dynamics Astronautics headquarters in San Diego. The building was torn down in the late 1990s and the time capsule is believed to have perished. The book gives some great insight into the general sense of optimism that so typifies 1960s futurism. Space colonies? Sure! Martian life? Why not! Teleportation? Easier than commercial space flight!
See also:
General Dynamics Astronautics Time Capsule (1963)
Broken Time Capsule (1963-1997)
Lyndon B. Johnson on 2063 A.D. (1963)
Edmund G. Brown's Californifuture (1963)
James B. Utt on Space Travel (1963)
Air Force Predictions for 2063 (1963)
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Reader Comments (4)
Seems to me General Dynamics published a similar book, with lots of illustration, some time in the Eighties. It was an imitation of an issue of National Geographic from a future year (2063?) with articles from all over the Solar System.
Will keep an eye out for it the next time I am rummaging in my archives.
Pat Flannery, a master of retro-spaceflight trivia, has http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.history/browse_frm/thread/449a766cf5fe279b#" REL="nofollow">come up with the answer, which had been noted in a book by Ron Miller:
"Planetary Explorer 'The Emigrant Trail' Special Edition, Volume 49, Number 4, December, 2038."
Pat also points out a copy that's currently for sale. And worldcat.org indicates that it's in a few libraries.
Some comments on it by Jim Spellman and Dwayne Allen Day can be found http://www.friends-partners.org/pipermail/fpspace/2004-January/011132.html" REL="nofollow">here.
I think that the whole scientific "optimism" of the 60s was due to the fact that we really had no idea just how difficult space travel would be, since we hadn't really done it yet (and aside from the moon, we still really haven't done it yet). Now that we see just how difficult and unfriendly space is, ask anyone where we will be in 100 years and they will probably say "Well, we probably will have been to mars, perhaps once or twice...and that's about it".
Nice book, but it is a useless now a days.