1. New countries might appear on the map by 2019
The population of Bougainville Island will vote on whether to secede from Papua New Guinea in 2019. The same thing will happen when New Caledonians will vote to secede from France next year. This means that there could be two new countries in the world by 2019.
2. The Jeddah Tower will reach 3,300 feet into the sky in 2020.
The first building on earth to tower more than a kilometer into the sky, Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower, is scheduled for completion in 2020. It will stand at no less than 3,303 feet in height.
3. Bigelow will open the very first space hotel in 2020.
Bigelow Aerospace plans to launch a spacecraft that can be used as a hotel by paying customers in 2020. One of the company’s designs is even used as accommodation by astronauts on the International Space Station.
4. Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket will land on Mars in 2024.
Billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk, founded SpaceX in 2002. The company is planning to send a cargo ship to Mars in 2024, and follow that mission up by sending people at a later date.
5. The world population will breach the 8 billion barrier by 2025.
The United Nations predicts that there will be 8 billion people on Earth by 2025, and 10 billion people on Earth by 2050.
6. The Sagrada Familia cathedral will finally be finished in 2026.
It’s amazing to think that the Sagrada Familia has been under construction since the end of the 19th Century (1883 to be precise). If completed as predicted in 2026, the cathedral would have been under construction for 143 years.
7. Venice might become uninhabitable by 2028.
Venice already has problems when the water in its lagoon is at high tide. It’s believed that the houses in the city will become uninhabitable by 2028, and there’s a possibility that the city will be completely submerged by 2100.
8. The Apophis asteroid will come within 23,000 miles of Earth in 2029.
Causing concern back in 2004 when it was first discovered, later calculations showed that the Apophis asteroid only has a 2.7% chance of hitting the Earth when it comes close to our planet in 12 years’ time.
9. The area of the Arctic ice sheet will be much smaller by 2030.
It’s predicted that the Arctic ice sheet will shrink dramatically by 2030. By 2100, it’s predicted that the ice sheet will melt completely during the summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
10. Aurora, the planned manned mission to Mars, will start in 2033.
The European Space Agency is scheduled to send a manned mission, named “Aurora”, in 2033. Prior to the ground-breaking flight, the ESA will send cargo to the Red Planet, as well as develop technologies to make landing on it (and returning to Earth) a lot more viable.
11. Quantum teleportation will be achieved in Russia by 2035.
Although it sounds like this technology concerns teleporting actual objects through space, it actually refers to the creation of a reliable system of communication for the transportation of polarized photons in space.
12. Probes will be sent out to the Alpha Centauri star system in 2036.
Alpha Centauri is the nearest star to our Sun. The Breakthrough Starshot project will send a fleet of spaceships powered by solar sails to the star system, and it will take them about 20 years to get there. Due to the distance, it will be a further five years before news of a successful arrival reaches Earth.
13. The US National Archives will declassify the assassination of JFK in 2038.
Many questions regarding John F. Kennedy’s assassination are still raised to this very day in spite of the official version that blames Lee Harvey Oswald for it. All of the information related to the assassination of the US President will be declassified in 2038.
14. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor will be operational by 2040.
This experimental reactor, which is designed to be much safer than existing nuclear reactors, will be operational by the year 2040. Construction began some 40 miles outside the city of Marseille back in 2007.
15. It's alleged that the technological singularity will be reached in 2045.
The technological singularity, which is the theoretical point at which biology, culture, and technology merge into a single entity, is expected to be reached in 2045. It could manifest itself as humanity’s integration with machines, which could see humans that are part biological and part machine.
16. The moratorium on mining the Arctic will be lifted in 2048.
Mining is strictly prohibited in Antarctica at the moment, but the mineral-rich polar region will come under intense scrutiny as the end of the 2048 mining moratorium comes closer.
17. Humans will begin to colonize Mars by 2050.
Another project that’s aiming for Mars is Mars One. It aims to begin the colonization of the Red Planet by the middle of 21st Century, however, there are some that doubt that this could ever happen.
