A feature in the Montreal Gazette examines ten predicted innovations that will take place over the next decade. Most of them are completely plausible. The full list is as follows:
- Lunar mining
- Medical miniaturization
- 3-D printing
- Smarter smart phones
- Cloud computing
- Nanotechnology
- Flying on algae (algae-based fuels)
- Living forever
- Biotechnology
- Alternative energies
We’re already seeing most of these in practice and over the next ten years we will certainly see significant advances. I’m skeptical of the suggestion that we’ll be setting up mining operations on the Moon anytime soon, however. To make mining helium-3 on the Moon profitable, we first need to develop practical nuclear fusion on Earth, and that is a *big* stumbling block. Second, we’d need to develop mining equipment that functions in the lunar environment, and build the means for workers to live on the moon. All massively expensive and very complicated.
Otherwise, I thought this was a neat list. It’s interesting to see additional mainstream coverage of these issues – particularly acknowledgement that humans may develop the means to effectively live forever (or at least reach “actuarial escape velocity“) in the next decade or so. No mention of robotics or artificial intelligence advances, however, which might be a big hole when we start looking back at these predictions in 2020.
A practical aneutronic fusion reactor is being developed, it can be fueled by helium-3 producing an awesome energy without neutron hazards.
The concept of fusion energy is an exciting one, but in order to drive private exploration of the Moon for helium-3, we’ll need to have the technology made practical and implemented.
I think private companies will do a much better job of Moon/space exploration than governments, but they need to have a strong profit motive to do so. Helium-3 might provide that motive, but I can’t see private Moon missions taking place before 2020.