The future we will live in is the future we imagine today. More and more, our fiction goes to dystopian, post-apocalyptic realities, environmental disasters, and social catastrophes. Warning fiction has its place, but an unending drumbeat of doom is hardly aspirational. Today, what genres show the way to the world we want, not just the one we want to avoid?

This article, the draft of which was written days after the Artemis I flight, gives an idea of the amount of work that went into the entire Artemis I mission by focusing on the work of one team: the trajectory design team, responsible for creating the path the spacecraft would take from the Earth to the Moon and back again. Robert Harpold takes us behind the scenes where, after so many years, we’ve sent a human-rated spacecraft back to the Moon!

Ana Sun delivers a thoughtful and thorough look at Solarpunk. How do positive visions of the future affect both scientists and citizens, designers and engineers? Can fiction highlight solutions to environmental dangers and social injustice? Learn about Solarpunk as a counterculture zeitgeist and a way to envision a livable future within a new genre of speculative fiction.

The concept of a weapon of power wielded by the hero of a tale to defeat the antagonist or opposing force in story or myth is not new, but it takes many forms, some subtle and some surprising. When you think of Dorothy’s ruby red slippers in The Wizard of Oz or those letters of transit signed by General de Gaulle in Casablanca, are you really just seeing another form of Excalibur?

As our civilization grows, it will inevitably stress the planet on which we make our home. Of course, humans are not ones to slow down, pull back, and ease up. When we finally use our immense powers to stabilize the world, we may have to make do with post cards of the way things used to be.

In a future where farming and ranching has moved to vast orbital habitats, there may be new problems, like how to ethically treat advancing A.I., but old problems remain. There is sewage to back up, a rodent problem to deal with, and a marriage to save.

A bowl of warm soup can soothe the soul, but can a special recipe bring a species of tree back from the brink of extinction? Curried carrot and kumara soup finished with pea shoots and a vibrant basil oil may sound delicious, but for one of the oldest trees in the world to hang on, the culinary branch of the Restoration Council must be impressed.

Petrichor is the pleasant, earthy scent that often accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather. Where today’s civilization often turns its instrumentality to the extraction of resources from the Earth, perhaps in the future our greatest machines will wait patiently, working toward healing a beleaguered ecology.

In this tale, Somto Ihezue reminds us that our growing civilization is not the only danger that stands between us and the future, but we are the only ones who can maintain hope and work to restore the natural world.

A delightful tale from a first-time author, wherein a driverless car is empowered to take you not where you want to go, but where you need to go. While every advance presents opportunities for dystopian failure, it’s equally true that the next generation of machines could be taught to know us better than we know ourselves.

As in all ages, the future will combine utopian and dystopian aspects, and those in the Department of Investigations are more likely to deal with the dark rather than the light. But when a missing person report leads to the top of the world, is it a crime or an attempt to fulfill a personal destiny?

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