mattscifi
The year is 2220 A.D. For the past two centuries, Earth and its inhabitants have been in rapid decline due to extreme storms, viruses, mass starvation, diseases, geographic climate destruction, supply shortages, and political upheavals to massive global conflicts.
These catastrophic events over numerous decades have killed billions and left Earth's surviving humans looking to the stars for salvation, as biodome habitats have been completed with the help of AI robots at the Mars and Moon colonies.
Meanwhile, all work on Earth has been dedicated to space shuttle construction, launch pad infrastructure, and rocket fuel supplies to power thousands of shuttles for the final, desperate exodus abandoning the planet.
The departure date for the Americans is set for today, July 4, 2220. The rest of the world's survivors were already designated for Mars as the planets aligned to make the long, more dangerous endeavor half a year earlier at the end of 2219.
There is nothing left for civilization on Earth, according to all that is taught and known. It's time to go or die trying for millions of Earthlings. Sitting on the porch of a farmhouse, a boy is watching space shuttles launch into the distant sky, leaving him and his family behind on Earth...