An Alternative History of the Future XII

2066

First manned mission to Pluto

Pluto was visited by Earth’s astronauts in the spacecraft Lowell-1[22] and Ivan Capurnian was the first Human to set foot on the surface. Pluto’s first colony was established in 2118 and by 2160, almost seventy million people were living in fifteen colonies on the solar system’s smallest planet. Pluto’s moon, Charon, was settled in 2123.

Unrest in West African Union

Tribal conflict in West Africa led to mass violence in Benin, Ghana and Togo. WAU troops quelled the fighting and martial law was imposed as food shortages become widespread.

Super Satellite Program

The Super Satellite Program was established, improving telecommunication links between Moon Bases Eden and Nirvana and space cities and stations near Earth.

Echoes of Space experiment launched

The Echoes of Space experiment (ESE), a descendent of the twentieth century’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program, was launched. Miniature radio telescopes, fitted to high-velocity probes, scanned for radio signals from stars similar to our sun, such as Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, on the hypothesis that those stars would be most likely to contain planetary systems capable of supporting life. Explorers in the twenty-third century validated this hypothesis.

2067

China tops GNP list

The Chinese GNP surpassed that of the USA for the first time. The top fifteen countries by GNP for 2067, are listed below.

Country	GNP (trillions of $U.S.)	Country	GNP (trillions of $U.S.)
China	28.5	Britain	6.6
USA	28.3	France	6.5
India	11.4	Maghreb Republic	6.1
Japan	10.3	Italy	5.8
Russia	9.4	Korea	5.1
Brazil	9.0	WAU	4.9
Germany	8.7	Australia	4.0
Indonesia	6.9

Niger Development Project

The Niger Development Project was established, altering the flow of Africa’s third-longest river to end an eight-year drought in west Africa. The Project also stopped the spread of the Sahara Desert, transforming parts of it into arable land.

2068

Chemical giants exploit Moon

DuPont and WorldChem, two giant chemical corporations, were granted lunar chemical production rights by the SISF. The corporations jointly established the Lanex Complex on the Moon, to process petroleum, porginine and hyper-strength plastics. The Lanex program encouraged lunar industrialization and settlement for the next twenty years.