World of 2044

When this book was written, the authors attempted to peer out 50 years to 2044. Now, it is 10 years after publication. Twenty percent there. Yet how far have we really come to the authors' suggestions? Well, several predictions looked out and up to the solar system. Here, progress seems glacial. In conventional launch capability, there has been no significant reduction in launch costs. Though a positive point is the recent upsurge in innovative and cheap launch strategies. Without any breakthroughs here, the book's space visions will mostly come to naught.Back on earth, technological changes have surged forward in computing. The authors wrote on the dawn of the Web. But they were farsighted enough to foresee an increasingly wired world. In the biological sciences, we are still at the start of a hard slog into such fields as a significant defeat of cancer or of a significant extension of longevity.Science fiction fans may also be attracted to this book by its contributions from noted SF authors like Sheffield and Pournelle.Overall, the book is quite commendable.