Identification Of Potentially Serious Global Trends With Relevance To Aerospace Systems Simulation

This paper presents and discusses a number of general global trends with potentially serious implications for the development and operation of aerospace systems. In this context, aerospace systems are those systems which include atmospheric or exo-atmospheric vehicles as a key component. The identified trends consist of widely discussed and anticipated changes in the areas of geologic resources, resource management and procurement, and climate change. The current dynamics of oil production and resource extraction are identified and discussed under the heading of resource management. Some of the implications of anticipated trends in climate change on industrial and operational environments are also discussed. This study is focused on defining the fundamental causes of the identified trends and identifying a baseline pessimistic scenario for use as context in future systems military utility simulation studies. It also examines some of the potential consequences and potential mitigation options with respect to aerospace systems development and operations with relevance to simulation based analysis.