James B. Utt on Space Travel (1963)

California congressman James B. Utt wrote a short piece for the time capsule book 2063 A.D., which was buried in 1963.

The honorable James B. Utt first says that he could not even make an uneducated guess as to the future of space travel but then, in true politician form, makes one anyway. His contribution appears in full below.

The Honorable James B. Utt
Congress of the United States

Your request with reference to a prophecy for your space capsule, I can only say that I do not have a Buck Rogers imaginative mind and could not even make an uneducated guess. The cost of escaping gravity will probably always curtail any commercial space travel, but the time will come when the scientists will be able to change the molecular body system and reduce the weight to zero and reconstruct the molecular system at any place and any time. Travel will then be as rapid as the mind can conceive. Personally, I do not look forward to this with any sense of enjoyment

You can find the book 2063 A.D. listed here on Amazon but I wouldn't count on copies becoming available anytime soon. Only 200 copies were printed and distributed to various universities.

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)

Edmund G. Brown's Californifuture (1963)

Today we continue our look into the time capsule and booklet titled 2063 A.D. Buried by General Dynamics Astronautics in 1963, there is some question as to where it may now reside, as the General Dynamics Astronautics building has been torn down. Some guessed that it would be at the San Diego Air & Space Museum but my last trip to that city turned up nothing. Hopefully, this time capsule hasn't been lost forever.

The piece below by California Governor Edmund G. Brown appears on page six of the time capsule booklet.

The Honorable Edmund G. Brown
Governor, State of California

I have been asked by those responsible for placing this "space" capsule to write down my guesses about the state of man's space efforts one hundred years from this date when, hopefully, this capsule will be opened.

Most of my life has been spent as a politician. Politicians generally know very little about rockets, satellites and the other trappings of outer space.

It is their task to be concerned about inner space, the still undiscovered space of the mind and the spirit, and about whether the institutions of men on this planet create for the men they are supposed to serve the atmosphere, the psychological spaciousness, in which they can grow to fulfill their human potential.

This is the "space" about which I am concerned in 1963 as I write this statement. Even here, on ground that is much more familiar to me than is outer space, I have few predictions, but many hopes, about life on earth one hundred years from now.

My chief hope is that by the time men will have truly grasped the overriding necessity of freedom as a condition of man's continued existence: freedom from the necessity to hate as well as freedom from oppression of the mind, the spirit and the body.

I hope too that, having grasped this imperative, man, one hundred years from 1963, will have transformed his institutions into guarantors of that freedom.

See also:
General Dynamics Astronautics Time Capsule (1963)
Broken Time Capsule (1963-1997)
Lyndon B. Johnson on 2063 A.D. (1963)

2000 A.D. Radio Documentary (1966)

The 1966 radio documentary 2000 A.D.: A documentary on life in the universe in the 21st century, hosted by Chet Huntley, covers some very interesting topics. Government, energy use, leisure time, electronics, use of the oceans, and private enterprise were among the many issues discussed by Mr. Huntley and those he interviewed.

You can listen to the introduction here. A transcript of the program's introduction appears below.

Year 2000!

Now, here is Chet Huntley.

We'll be celebrating a special New Year's Eve. Bells will ring, orchestras will play "Auld Lang Syne," boys and girls will embrace and the new century will be upon us.

It will be the year 2000. Or, if you prefer twenty-hundred. But what shall we call it? Two-triple-oh, perhaps.

A baby born tonight could not be president of the United States in the year 2000. He would have not yet attained the constitutional age of thirty-five years.

Statistics indicate that about three-fourths of the people listening to me at this moment will live to see that year, which is no further in the future than the election of Franklin Roosevelt is in the past.

What do we know about year 2000? Well, ecologists tell us that in that year we will have run very nearly out of food, that half the world's population will be on a starvation diet. We can project the so-called electronic revolution and predict that the number of workers engaged in actual production will drop to only 18 percent of the workforce. At the same time, the number of people in all the various service occupations will almost double.

Experts tell us that we will cluster more than ever into cities, drive electrically powered cars, work less, and retire earlier. But what about these things? What will they mean to you and me, to the average worker and to his family?

See also:
Closer Than We Think! Monoline Express (1961)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 1 (1970)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 2 (1970)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 3 (1970)

Taiwan Has Abandonment Issues

I recently came across yet another abandoned Taiwanese development that Flickrtarian Airman 19_19 claims is a futuristic-looking hotel.

"The land it's built on is reserved by the government for public works/purposes/use only, which hotels do not fall under. It's easy to get building permits for almost anything, but you need a separate permit to actually operate such things. Apparently several decades ago it was common practice to get the building permit, build your hotel, and then bribe an official into giving you the operator's permit. Unfortunately, this hotel was built just as the government began cracking down on such corruption, and as such was never given permission to open."

See also:
Desolation Row (16 Feb 2007)
Desolation Row in Color (22 Feb 2007)