Projecting inferences of realities into a past or a future is a device often used by writers to portray the ‘effects’ of prevailing circumstances or events. Meyer (Mike) Moldeven, a retired civilian logistics analyst for the U. S. Air Force, chose the distant future as the setting for his e-novel ‘The Universe-or Nothing.’ The work includes ‘References’ and an ‘Afterwords’ section as context for his speculations.
Mike recently completed an essay ‘NONRENEWABLE RESOURCES and SPACEFARING: A Future History?’ to update and expand on the original ‘AFTERWORDS’ section and it may be freely downloaded at:
http://hometown.aol.com/yarnspinner88/myhomepage/politics.html
Briefly, in ‘THE UNIVERSE-or Nothing’ humankind populates the Solar System from Mercury to beyond Dwarf Planet Pluto. Centuries of wasteful consumption of essential industrial-base metals, minerals, ores and other nonrenewable substances has brought the Solar Community to the brink of disaster. Retreat is unacceptable. Humankind reaches for the stars.
The e-novel may be freely downloaded from the Project Gutenberg Archive Library at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18257