The amazing future of the Earth was shown at the exhibition in Moscow

People will live in trees and flying cities

Nutrition through the patch. Smart clothes that track health indicators. Houses located in tree trunks, among the open spaces of the ocean or floating in the air. It sounds like science fiction, but all the voiced ideas already exist – on paper or in experimental developments. It turns out that in order to imagine the future, you need to look back at the past. This is proved by the exhibition “Captains of the Future”, which is intended primarily for children, but will also be of interest to adults.

The game project begins in the library, one of the walls of which is a huge screen, and the rest are filled with books. This interactive pavilion is about the dreams of science fiction writers and scientists. On the screen floats a portrait of Sergei Korolev, who dreamed of overcoming gravity, Alexander Popov, who dreamed that information would be distributed wirelessly, and many other great inventors whose aspirations came true. Often the most daring dreams about the future were expressed by people who were far from technology and science, but endowed with great imagination. Some of the writers’ prophecies have already come true, some have not yet. The captains of the future, in which young spectators play at the exhibition, must find on the shelves the books of the Strugatsky brothers, Kir Bulychev, Ivan Efremov, Alexander Belyaev, thereby “energize” their fantasies about the generation of distant space and the depths of the ocean to come true …

Each of the halls of the exhibition is “touching”. Here you can touch the future with your own hands, in the process learning about what food and clothes, houses and streets, transport and energy sources were and will be like. For example, to smell molecular food in a glass flask, and find out that there is already an idea to eat with a band-aid. It turns out that there are drugs that are taken through a patch. In the future, this simple device is going to be equipped with a microchip, which will independently calculate the set of nutrients necessary for a person and introduce them into the body.

Clothes will also get smarter. Not so long ago, for example, they came up with a spray with which you can “apply” a T-shirt or dress on yourself. Moreover, such a thing can be washed and put on again. Shoes in the future will not only be comfortable, but will also track health indicators – determine the level of stress and identify diseases. However, it is impossible to try experimental samples at the exhibition, but you can admire smart sneakers.

The greatest scope of fantasy opens in the architectural plane. In the yellow hall with a large floor-screen, which demonstrates options for cities of the future, many projects are presented that were invented a hundred years ago and very recently. For example, the project of Georgy Krutikov, a student of VKhUTEMAS, who in 1928 presented the project of the “Flying City” as a graduation work, is visualized here. Another Soviet architect, Viktor Kalmykov, proposed the project “Saturnius” – a city that should encircle the Earth with a ring. For the 1930s, the idea was too bold, but who knows what will happen in the future.

Another architectural thought is the dream of living in trees. You open the door in the wall, and behind it such a city-forest already lives its own life. Tall trees are covered with lush foliage, and in the trunks there is a high-rise building glowing from the inside. If such a project is implemented, then there will be no need to cut down trees in order to build a stone jungle, megacities will become alive and green. This is still only a fantasy, but 3D printers, with which you can print buildings, are already practice. For clarity, such a device is presented at the exhibition.

Transport, energy sources and communications are the most favorite topics of science fiction scientists. In the pavilion, which presents various projects of moving machines of the past and the future, there is, for example, a personal airship that can fly short and long distances. How do people drive cars today? The 2008 project could replace the usual cars. Now this development is frozen, but engineers do not lose hope of making aircraft available to everyone that do not pollute the planet with exhaust gases. Mankind has dreamed of such devices for more than a hundred years.

The biggest and alluring dream is space. He is waiting for the audience at the end of the journey. Here, the young captains are inside a fantastic ship that rushes through the expanses of the universe. You can press buttons and admire the planets of the solar system hanging over your head. The voice of Victor Verzhbitsky, meanwhile, tells about the great space explorers – from Konstantin Tsiolkovsky to Yuri Gagarin. Maybe the next one will be one of those guys who made an expedition here in time and space. Nothing is impossible.