The Usborne Book of the Future

One book that I fondly remember from my youth is 'The Usborne Book of the Future', first published in 1979 by Usborne Books, and written by Kenneth Gatland and David Jefferis. The book is a very illustrative and colourful trip in time to the year 2000 and beyond. Portrayed in its pages is the exciting and wonderful world of robots, cities of the future, space colonies and interstellar travel. This is the future as seen from the stand point of almost thirty years ago, a future that many of us still dream of today and remains yet to be realized.





My most favorite illustrations in the book are the ones depicting Space Arks and Asteroid Colonies as envisioned by Dandridge Cole back in the early 1960s. 

Asteroid Mining Base

I posted an article concerning Dan Cole last August entitled 'Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids, the Pioneering Work of Dandridge M. Cole’. Compare these illustrations to those created by Roy Scarfo who worked closely with Cole in the 1960s.

Hollowed Out Asteroid Space Colony

You can download entire book "The Usborne Book of the Future" in pdf format.

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