On Oct. 21, 2015, an unofficial holiday known as “Back to the Future Day” was held worldwide. This was the date that Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel in the second installment of the “Back to the Future”. Despite not having the nineteenth installment of “Jaws” in theaters, we do have the hover board and the self-lacing Nikes in development. It was also on this day that the Chicago Cubs were knocked out of the playoffs (despite being the World Series champions in the movie). A lot has happened between 1985 and 2015, imagine what will happen between now and 2045.

Mars

Despite the recent film adaptation of “The Martian”, NASA still plans to send astronauts to the red planets by the 2030s. Not only that, the space program also plans to land astronauts on an asteroid by 2025.

Skyscrapers

Not only will humanity reach the stars but also our skyscrapers too. Skyscrapers of the future will be able to withstand the high winds at such a high altitude. The tallest building in the world at this moment is the Burj Kalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which stands at a height of 2,717 feet. If the Azerbaijan Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan is set to be complete by 2019, it will stand at a height of 3,445 feet.

Self-flying planes

A few years ago, Google launched their driverless cars and now they’re hoping to extend to pilotless planes thanks to Dave Vos’ Project Wing plan. This project was inspired by Amazon’s usage of drones for their deliveries. Although Vos insists that would be safer without a human pilot, it would take a while for the general public to get used to the idea.

Virtual Reality

There was a virtual reality boom in the 1990s but it came to a standstill after the failure of the Nintendo Virtual Boy. Virtual reality might be here to stay thanks to Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion back in March 2014. Oculus VR is the company that is responsible for the famous Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset.

Robotics

Martin Ford, the author of “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future”, believes that robots will replace blue-collar jobs such as steel production, retail and fast food due to the fact that they do not need sleep or breaks. According to a study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the December of 2013, automations will replace a significant amount of farmers, postal workers, typists and sewing machine operators by 2022. Not only that, 47 percent of jobs in the United States will be replaced by automations within the next two decades according to an University of Oxford study entitled “The Future of Employment.”