Cult movie Back to the Future II believed that we'd have flying cars by 2015, while The Terminator envisaged that killer cyborgs would walk among us by 2029. We've been bombarded by Hollywood with pictures of what the future could hold for years – but when will the sci-fi predictions become reality?

From controlling the weather to curing cancer, we've created a timeline of the future that definitively sorts the facts from the myths. Read on to step into our time machine... All dollar values in US dollars.

The pursuit of self-driving cars began a century ago in the 1920s, and the first automated car was developed in Japan in 1977.

But it's only in the last few years that self-driving cars have really left the experimental stage, and we're now seeing companies testing the cars in public spaces. However, this hasn't happened without some bumps in the road...

When Uber tested an autonomous vehicle (AV) in March 2018, it hit the headlines for the wrong reasons: a pedestrian was knocked over and killed.

Elaine Herzberg, 49, died after being hit by the automated Uber in Tempe, Arizona, marking the first-ever fatality caused by an AV. Investigation into the incident found that the car didn't swerve due to misconfigured software that registered Herzberg as a "false positive", which the software decided could be ignored so as to ensure a smooth ride. 

A lot of car manufacturers have been embracing the technology. These include Audi, whose concept car is pictured; Mercedes Benz; and Tesla. However, a fully driverless experience probably isn't on the cards just yet. While autonomous features are now slowly becoming more commonplace – including automated lane-keeping technology – the ethical concerns around AVs need ironing out before the vehicles can take to the streets.

In January 2022, UK lawmakers agreed that autonomous car manufacturers should be fully liable for any accidents that occur due to programming errors, meaning companies have to be confident their technology is safe, or face the legal (and financial) consequences.

Known as "geoengineering", scientists have been trying to control the weather for decades. In 1962, the US government's Project Stormfury tried to weaken tropical storms by flying aircraft directly into them, seeding them with the antiseptic silver iodide.

However, they didn't find this 'cloud seeding' process to be successful as the chemical didn't freeze the water in the storm as intended. There was also the small issue of scale, with aircraft no match for the size of the storm. 

According to the World Meteorological Organization, more than 50 countries currently have cloud seeding programmes. Among them is China, which aims to launch the world's largest weather machine having successfully "cleared" the skies before the 2008 Beijing Olympics by setting off hundreds of rockets to divert rainfall.

In Idaho, meanwhile, the SNOWIE project – the name of which stands for Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds – is attempting to boost snowfall in the region by sending smoke filled with particles of silver iodide into the clouds. 

If scientists are successful, there could potentially be major benefits to controlling the weather. Since 1980, natural disasters have cost the US government over $1.79 trillion (£1.3tn), with this figure likely to skyrocket as climate change makes extreme weather events more common.

Reflecting sunlight away from the Earth could reduce the risk of wildfires, for example, while boosting rainfall in times of drought could result in bumper crops, helping to alleviate food shortages around the world. But therein lies the issue: if climate change is at the root of so many problems, could weather control cause more damage than it resolves? 

In late 2021, a patient in the UK became the first person to receive a 3D-printed eye. The 3D-printed prosthetic was created based on a scan of his eye socket, enabling an exact fit without the complicated surgery required to implant traditional acrylic prosthetics. 

Engineer Steve Verze, from London, had relied on a traditional prosthetic eye since the age of 20 but says he "always felt self-conscious" about the way it looked. He received his 3D-printed eye in November 2021 at Moorfields Eye Hospital. "This new eye looks fantastic and being based on 3D printing technology, it's only going to be better and better," he said at the time. Although creating an eye doesn't quite come with the same problems associated with printing organs such as hearts or livers, it's still a major achievement in the world of bioprinting. 

Californian company Prellis Biologics has developed technology to print the rapid creation of capillaries which form the inside of organs, bringing us another step closer to 3D-printed organs. As well as that, the company also announced in May 2020 that it was researching the bioprinting of lymph nodes in a bid to produce COVID-19 antibodies.

In 2019, research scientist Melanie Matheu, who co-founded Prellis Biologics Inc in 2016, said that she believed it will take the organisation $15 million (£11.5m) and two-and-a-half years before it is able to test the 3D-printed organs on animals. In December 2021, it was revealed that Prellis Biologics had closed a $14.5 million (£10.8m) Series B funding round. However, the use of complex 3D-printed organs for transplant is still plagued by problems, including transporting the tissue and getting blood to flow through the synthetic cells. 

In 1940, automaker Henry Ford said: "Mark my word – a combination aeroplane and motor car is coming." Although his comment has been widely mocked in the intervening decades, it's not just Ford (or Marty McFly) who has suggested that flying cars could be the future. According to the investment bank Morgan Stanley, the "autonomous urban aircraft" industry could create a market worth $1.5 trillion (£1.1tn) by 2040. 

Uber was developing a flying taxi but it has since sold off its Uber Elevate division to Joby Aviation, although Uber also invested $75 million (£57m) as part of the deal. Joby is aiming to launch its first services in 2023, despite a recent crash involving one of its prototypes.

At this year's Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Los Angeles, one of the inventions on display was the Hybrid Carcopter S Eleven Flying Vehicle, also referred to as a "carcopter". Built by the French company Maca Flight, the ground-breaking vehicle will feature a semi-automatic pilot mode and be tested out on race tracks later in the year.

Meanwhile, HT Aero has developed a car that can fly at low altitudes as well as be driven on the ground. The Chinese company, which raised $500 million (£373m) to fund the project, aims to release the model by 2024. However, it could be many more years before the technology becomes affordable for all but the wealthiest drivers. 

Good news for would-be astronauts: commercial space travel could well become possible in your lifetime. In June 2021, Amazon's billionaire founder Jeff Bezos launched the first crewed mission of his aerospace company Blue Origin. The flight aboard the New Shepard rocket lasted just 10 minutes, but Bezos followed this up with another mission on 13 October.

Actor William Shatner joined the flight as a guest, making him the oldest person ever in space at 90 years old. The Star Trek actor didn't have to pay for his ticket – but other people haven't been quite so fortunate. 

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa enlisted the help of Elon Musk's SpaceX business to fulfil his space travel dream in 2019. The trip around the moon, which has been given the mission name dearMoon, is scheduled to take-off at some point in 2023. Maezawa, an art collector and founder of ZOZO, Japan's largest online retailer, hit headlines in March 2021 by inviting eight members of the public to apply to join him for the lunar voyage.

But Blue Origin and SpaceX are not the only entrepreneurs who are setting their sights on outer space... 

British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has been promising that it will take passengers into space nearly every year since its launch in 2004. Although Branson made his maiden voyage to the edge of space in summer 2021, he hasn't taken any paying customers on board – yet. Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, and Katy Perry are among the celebrities that have already bought a $250,000 (£186k) ticket for a future Virgin Galactic flight. But how long will it be until space travel is affordable for people who don't have an A-lister bank balance?

According to Northern Sky Research, around 57,500 passengers could be travelling into space every year by 2031. Considering more than 400,000 people visit New York every day, space is unlikely to become a tourist hotspot anytime soon. But this does, of course, represent a huge increase from current numbers. 

In 2012, scientists learned how to use DNA sequences found in bacteria – called CRISPR and pronounced "crisper" – to cut DNA, testing its potential to edit human cells.

While not in use as yet, a 2016 review in the Nature Biotechnology journal reported that CRISPR could correct genetic defects such as cystic fibrosis, cataracts, and Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disease that can lead to bone marrow failure, cancer, and leukaemia. But are so-called "designer babies" going to become the norm?

Genetic modification on human cells is currently illegal in the UK, and while some experiments have taken place, a designer baby has not yet been created.

However, bioethics Professor Henry Greely from Stanford University has predicted that genetically engineering babies will be the norm in 20-40 years, with parents choosing the embryos based on disease risk, sex, and intelligence.

OK, we aren't exactly talking about the elixir of life here, but what if you could download your brain and live forever? Some neuroscientists believe that the computer-like nature of the brain means that it could one day be possible to live on after death. This is contested by others, however, who believe the brain is still too much of a mystery for us to even consider it.

But that's not stopping some people from exploring the possibilities...

Russian internet millionaire Dmitry Itskov (pictured here with the Dalai Lama) hopes to make it possible by 2045.

In 2011, he set up the 2045 Strategic Social Initiative, which has the goal of making it possible to transfer the human consciousness to an artificial carrier, guaranteeing "cybernetic immortality".

Robots have been a mainstay of sci-fi films for years. Already present on factory floors around the world, robots are taking over roles that are either too dangerous, too boring, or too fiddly for most humans to perform.

And if you're hankering after a friendly robot companion that will live in your house and work for you, you might not have to wait too long. According to a study by Futurism, "humanoid robotic butlers" could be in our homes within 20 to 25 years, giving an approximate arrival time of 2045. 

Thanks to recent developments in AI, the technology to create personal robot assistants already exists – up to a point.

As Amazon discovered when it unveiled its home robot Astro at its annual tech event in 2021, there's significant potential for error. According to insider information leaked from Amazon to Vice, one product developer described Astro as "terrible", adding that the doomed robot would "almost certainly throw itself down a flight of stairs if presented with the opportunity." Not ideal for a robot that costs around $1,000 (£747)...

As with most of the items on this list, the arrival of robot assistants doesn't just depend on technology; it also depends on whether the technology can be developed cheaply enough to make them affordable for everyday people.

Until then, most of the world's robots are likely to be built for commercial rather than domestic use, such as this "smart farmer" (pictured), which has been programmed to pick only the ripest fruit. 

Frustratingly there isn't a "yes" or a "no" answer as to whether or not we will ever have a complete cure for cancer.

While the illness is fundamentally the result of rogue cells growing out of control, Cancer Research UK says that every cancer, and every individual sufferer's form of cancer, is different.

We're nearly there with some strains of cancer; testicular cancer, for example, has a 98% five-years-or-more survival rate, according to research. Barrie Bode of Northern Illinois University believes we won't find a cure for all types of cancer within most of our lifetimes. He's optimistic that "some types of cancer might be cured – that's happened already. But new pharmaceutical cures are rare. Over the next century, I'd say the chance is very remote that we will find a single 'cure for cancer'".

It's not all bad news though. Professor Karol Sikora, former head of the cancer programme at the World Health Organization (WHO), believes scientists could start prescribing personalised drugs that could convert cancer into a long-term chronic health condition within the next decade. This would enable people to live with cancer and manage it medically, as they would diabetes or heart disease. 

Now discover what the world's greatest wonders would cost to build today