"Dennis" wrote in message
. 4.11...
David E. Powell wrote:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...-sink-internat
ional-space-station-in-2020/

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...plans-to-sink-
international-space-station-in-2020/

Yeah, stripping NASA is a great idea.... :P


Interesting! I'm reading "The Next 100 Years" by George Friedman of
STRATFOR. His predictions to 2020 a

1) We're at the end of the Islamic-terrorism war, which will fizzle out.


It already has. The death of bin Laden set off hints of protests.



2) China will fragment internally.


It should fragment suddenly and dramatically
into several new nations. When the govt is rigid
and unchanging, but the needs and opinions of
the people constantly evolve, the two camps
must steadily drift apart. The internal stress there
must be enormous.

It's the largest house of cards ever. Just waiting
for some kind of event or martyr to bring it down.
I doubt if China will last five years, let along ten.
It could happen at any time.


The coastal cities and regions are
making all the money. The central gov't will want to send some of it to
the interior but won't be able to, so they won't be able to tell the
coastal areas what to do. This may not be very wisible to us; mainly it
means China won't be much of a player on the world scene.

3) OTOH, there will be a mini-repeat of the Cold War with Russia as it
rebuilds militarily and tries to rebuild its strategic buffers. It won't
get very hot. The US will ally with the Eastern European states. It will
end about like the last one around 2020.

So, could this be the first play? :-)


Russia is still smarting from the pressure we put on them
to splash the old Mir space station, so they could keep
up with their part of the ISS construction.


Dennis