RyansWorld: Spaceport

'''Special Note: Please note that this scenario is meant to be read as entertainment, not as an accurate prediction of the future. Also note that the viewpoints and opinions that may come across in this scenario are not necessarily the viewpoints and opinions of the author.'''

By 2065, maglev train stations and spaceports will have mostly relegated the role of the airplane and the airport to the history books. Traveling from one end of North America to the other will take three hours on a maglev train, as opposed to three days (72 hours) on a conventional train.

Summary


Airplanes contribute more to air pollution than trains, automobiles and busses combined. They also are expensive to maintain and require lots of fuel to operate. Spaceships can run on hydrogen fuel while maglev trains don't need fossil fuels to operate. Major airports will have to shut down by 2030 because nobody can afford to fly by then.

Airport security issues created by the fascist Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will also cause airlines to lose money rapidly. More people will blame rising airfares on rising TSA security fees rather than the price of crude oil. This doesn't get solved even when Canada and the United States becomes Canadamerica. Even when oil is selling for $200 US per barrel and more people are using alternative fuels than petroleum, people will blame their rising airfares on keeping the security systems operable rather than our rapidly depleting fossil fuel supply. The American people will slowly fight back against the TSA, disbanding them by force in an Act of Congress that takes place sometime in 2049.

Before that, America will renounce its former status as a liberal democracy and become a Neo-Confederate fascist police state where women have been reduced to second-class citizens, homosexuals are openly hated and prosecuted, virtually all government spending goes to the military, there is no immigration at all and anyone found in the country illegally is executed. The police will be allowed by an act of Congress to have a division that is literally called the Death Squad (who go around shooting at any and all criminals with M16 rifles and will execute anyone who surrenders to them). Free speech is prohibited and suppressed by the Firemen, corporations run the country with legalized slavery and have full access to everyone's information at all times, pollution is sold as food (resulting in the poor starting to become mutants), the CIA have been replaced by the freaking Ministry of Love and prisons are re-education facilities (not that it matters, as virtually everyone is sentenced to death (even down to crimes such as loitering and disturbing the peace).

Other nations like China, the Indo-Pakistani Empire and the Eurasian Union will start to crack down on airline activity before shutting down the airports in favor of maglev train stations and spaceports. By 2050, maglev trains are faster and offer more mileage for the amount of money that people have to pay for a seat. Eventually, people will colonize space and create ouposts like the Lunar Protectorate. Mars, Venus, the asteroid belt and the Gas Giants will be fully colonized by the year 2150.

The Era of Spaceports
Zero gravity training will be required in order to hijack passenger spacecraft; rendering standard terrorism nearly useless. Most conventional terrorists can't afford an university or military education to go through astronaut training. Only the militaries of First World countries had the technology to properly instill "terrorist-style" training in their young recruits. Only China and Russia are technologically advanced enough as Third World countries to provide zero gravity training. However, most terrorists can't afford to deal with the Russian and Chinese politicians so that they can get astronaut training.

Hydrogen fuel will become the savior of the transportation industry; bringing back jobs that high petroleum prices took away in the 2010s. New jobs in robotics, nanotechnology, genetic engineering and space exploration would play a critical role in ending the Second Dark Ages that began back in September 2008 when people suddenly lost hundreds of millions in hard-earned cash. The governments of the world will try their best to keep the price of hydrogen fuel stabilized.

It would take years and years of technological research for airplanes to lose their near total monopoly in the travel industry. The video game industry predicted back in 1994 that airplanes will become obsolete sometime around 2030; the final end-game of the Super NES video game Aerobiz Supersonic. Maglev trains took over where the airplanes took off; providing fast luxurious travel for everyone.

Spaceplanes will support Wi-Fi in regions of outer space where access to the Intergalactic Internet is possible.