Time Travel: Year Zero

Maybe 2009.
Maybe 2010.
It depends.

It depends on having the correct Temporal Transplacement Infrastructore in place, for one thing.
I mean, surely one cannot expect to time travel if one does not have the correct time travel docking facility awaiting one, may one?

Hitherto, time travel has been nothing more than jumping in the old De Lorean and setting the time-space co-ordinates on the Tom Tom and literally...jumping into the past...or future. Nice concept. The De Lorean provides the proper temporal infrastructure at both ends of the time line.
Paradoxically, if we jump backwards, the De Lorean may not exist yet...or be at the car wash, not at the high school prom that we wish to be at.
If we go forward, rust may have totally corrupted the auto, and it may have been donated to the Purple Heart. So this approach will not work the way we wish.
No. Infrastructure is needed, independent infrastructure in the time periods in question, both at the start of the temporal jump...meaning me here and now in my laboratory, a modern day Dr. Praetorius with my miniature supernova creations within bell jars, crackling with sempiternal intensity...

Bell Jar 6: Supernova Remnant...(note: don't fry companion galaxies!)

...and at the end of the temporal jump, meaning the end of the temporal jump. The target, if you will.
Why now?
Well, the first bit of galactic mosh-pit dust has been fed into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) cum atom smasher, mandoline, ricer and dicer. One thing leading to another, this will possibly lead to (1) the end of the world as we know it, or more probably, (2) the creation of closed Time-Like Curves (TLCs...essentially torus or doughnut shaped curves).
The TLC is nothing more than the wormhole of yore, already used by Deep Space Nine and any other number of quasi-commercial enterprises. Thus, the future will have the proper type of "dunkers" or TLC containment fields, and now so shall we, that is, we shall if we take advantage of the LHC's TLCs and build the proper type of doughnut-shaped guestroom onto the estate. This is where our great-great-grandchildren from the future may come and visit while their self-centered, narcissistic parents vacation in Thule on Mars.

Now, we come to what we all are concerned with: won't everyone leave 2008?!

I mean, why stick around waiting for the rest of the financial debacle to unwind? Or the Afghanistan situation to go to Hades in a tiffin box?

Who, indeed, will man things here in 2008?

I do not know.

Last person to leave 2008, please turn off the lights.