I notice no activity here since October 2006, and I'd really like to get involved with fellow futurists. So, here's an attempt at sparking conversation and perhaps more meetups...

"When Expedition Crew One, carrying William Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev soared into space from the steppes of Kazakhstan on October 31, 2000 toward the International Space Station they pulled behind them a curtain on an eon that has lasted 542 million years. As the three men entered an infant space station still under construction, six billion citizens went about their business like any other day. Perhaps a few million people tapped into the Internet or turned on the television, temporarily fascinated by the idea of a unique group of roommates sizing up a celestial domicile. Several thousand might have sensed that a new stage of space exploration had been reached, that soon, finally, we would send our own kind to the Moon and beyond. I would guess, however, that only a handful fully recognized the implication of Expedition Crew One: From now on, at least one human being will be in space. Terrestrial life, having established a permanent foothold offworld, will begin to survive, grow, and evolve in space. As soon as those men lifted off the pad on a pillar of fire as bright as the Sun, the Phanerozoic Eon came to an end, and the Astrazoic Eon dawned."

-From a silly paper I wrote some time ago.