We have met prominent scientists, engineers and inventors whose daring projects are aimed into the future. On behalf of millions of readers we asked them to do a little dreaming with us, try to foresee the developments in the branches of science in which they are working, tell us how their projects will be carried into, life and what they will accomplish. Cannot biologists tell what the plant will be like by its very first shoots? We asked the scientists to point out to us the more viable, so to speak, shoots in the science of today and the most promising trends in its development, and to help us form a picture of the mighty plants that will grow from these modest shoots.

We asked the scientists to cast an eye not only at the nearest future, the years we include in our long-term planning, but to look beyond them, through decades, to the very turn of the twenty-first century and even farther.

The scientists very willingly consented.

To be sure, this was no easy matter. In the U.S.S.R. science and engineering are developing faster than ever before. Not so very long ago atomic power was a vision of a distant future, today uranium reactors are already being installed in giant electric stations. It was not so very long ago that means of conveyance capable of connecting continents in the space of a few minutes existed only in science fiction, today intercontinental rockets are a reality. Fancy bridging a gulf of fifty years yet to come, when an engineering project outstrips even the most daring fantasy?! But the scientists did it just the same.

Listening to the tales about the wonders science is to carry into life and
engineering to bring within everybody’s reach we seemed to live in the future ourselves. And this is why we feel justified in naming our reports of the interviews “Reports from the Twenty-First Century.”

Translated from the Russian by David Myshne
Designed by Juri Kopylov
Illustrated by N. Grishin

You can get the book here and here

Date is approximate.

Note: Restoring the book to its present state took some efforts. This book was in a really bad shape. It had been drenched in water for sometime before we got it almost two decades back. Though the spine and binding are good the pages themselves have brownish patches due to water damage in almost every page. Almost all pages with illustrations had to be edited manually. Hence you will notice slight change in colouration especially in the two colour illustrations. The full colour plates similarly have a weird colouration effect due to white balancing out the water damage.

Contents

Here’s the corrected table of contents without leading dots:

INTRODUCTION
From the Authors 9
Learn to Dream 10

THE MAIN AND MOST IMPORTANT THINGS
Transformation of Elements—the Future of Metallurgy 21
Mines Are Breathing Their Last 30
Automatic Oil Field 40
From the Sources 46
Power Resources in the Year 2010 50
Farkhad’s New Hammer 56

IN THE NAME OF LIFE AND PLENTY
Biology Will Become an Exact Science 68
Tale About Bloodless Surgery 72
The Golden Age of Plenty Is Coming 83
At One Table with Poseidon 90

THE AGE OF RADIO
The Second Fifty Years in the Life of Radio 107
The Revolution in Intellectual Work Has Begun 115
Man Will Kindle an Artificial Sun 121
The Second Window onto the Universe 131

JAUNTS, EXCURSIONS, TRAVELS
On Land, at Sea and in the Air 143
Through 21st Century Moscow 150
Model of the Year 2010 156
A Picture of the Future School 160
Magnetic Photographs and Films 167
Siberia Through a Stratoplane Window 173

MASTERS OF THE PLANET
Geographers Will Remake Nature 188
Pulse of the Tatar Strait 194

DISTANT VOYAGES
Lunar City 204
Through Interstellar Abysses 208