40th Anniversary Time Capsule: A Message Across Generations
By Richard L. Skolasky Jr., ScD Chair, NASS Administrative Council
This year, NASS celebrates its 40th anniversary, a milestone that invites us to reflect on how far we’ve come and to imagine the decades ahead. To honor the occasion, we are sealing a time capsule—a collective message to the future of spine care, education, and research.
Inside will be “Letters to the Future of Spine Care,” written by NASS’ Board of Directors, global partner societies and patient organizations, and contributions from emeritus and early career members, leaders, and long-standing committees. The time capsule will be sealed during this year’s Annual Meeting to be opened in 2065, when NASS marks its 80th anniversary.
This project is both symbolic and practical: it draws together the past, present, and future of spine care to create a shared statement about where we have been, where we stand, and where we hope to go.
What it Is
The Time Capsule is designed as a living record of today’s spine community. While traditional capsules rely on physical relics, ours is built to reflect the dynamic, digital reality of 2025. Messages take many forms—letters, essays, video statements, and recorded reflections—that together capture a portrait of spine care at this turning point.
Contributions have flowed in from across the globe. Partner societies describe both common goals and local challenges. Emeritus members reflect on decades of change. Early-career members share their hopes and ambitions for a field still being shaped. NASS leaders articulate both the hard-earned lessons of experience and the aspirations they wish to entrust to their successors.
Taken together, these voices form a chorus of perspectives. The capsule is not just an archive—it is a conversation across generations, intentionally preserved for those who will carry spine care forward.
“From a few hundred members in the 1980s to a global society today, NASS has grown not just in size but in stature. We are now recognized worldwide as a leader in education, research, and advocacy for spine care. This time capsule is one more way of saying to the future: we were here, and we cared deeply about leaving the field stronger than we found it.”
F. Todd Wetzel, NASS Past President and SpineLine Editor
Why it Matters
At its heart, the time capsule is about legacy. By preserving the voices of 2025, we ensure that future generations will hear directly from those who lived through this moment of rapid change in spine care, education, and research.
The time capsule also highlights NASS’ role as a convener. By drawing in contributions from societies worldwide, we create not only a record, but a collaborative vision. It affirms NASS as a thought leader in global spine health, advancing dialogue across borders and specialties.
Over four decades, NASS has grown from a small group of committed clinicians into the world’s leading multidisciplinary society for spine care. In 1985, a few hundred members gathered around shared questions of practice and research; today, the Society represents thousands of professionals across disciplines, geographies, and career stages.
This growth has been matched by influence. Nationally, NASS has become a trusted voice in policy and advocacy, shaping standards of care and reimbursement models. Internationally, it has earned prestige as a convener of spine societies across continents, fostering collaboration that spans surgery, rehabilitation, engineering, and research science.
Perhaps most importantly, NASS has created a home for education and research. Annual meetings now draw thousands of attendees and hundreds of courses, symposia, and abstracts. The Society’s journals stand among the most respected in orthopedics and spine, setting benchmarks for evidence-based practice. Its research initiatives, from seed grants to multicenter trials, have seeded the very knowledge base that future spine professionals will inherit.
But the time capsule is more than commemoration. It allows us to say, in effect: This is who we are, this is what matters to us, and this is what we hope you, the leaders of 2065, will inherit and improve upon.
“The merger of two initially disparate groups, the North American Lumbar Spine Association and the American College of Spinal Surgeons, that formed NASS in 1985, were driven to improve spine care through education and collegial collaboration.
It is important that current and future members of NASS be familiar with the 40-year NASS journey and the role NASS has played in improving and advancing spine care globally.”
Richard Nasca, NASS Founder
Ceremony
The journey culminates here at the Annual Meeting. Beginning October 15, contributions have been available for public viewing through an online exhibit and on-site displays in Denver. Members have been able to explore the collection, see familiar voices, and witness the breadth of perspectives offered.
On Saturday, November 15, during the Presidential Address, the capsule will be formally sealed. Administrative Council Chair Richard L. Skolasky, Sc.D., and NASS Founder Richard Nasca, MD, will close the time capsule in a brief ceremony. The act is simple, but the meaning is profound: we are pledging to preserve today’s vision and to deliver it—intact—to our colleagues in 2065.
After sealing, the time capsule will be housed at NASS Headquarters, a visible reminder of the Society’s commitment to continuity, curiosity, and collaboration. Forty years from now, when it is opened, the voices of 2025 will speak again – reminding the next generation where we stood, what we hoped for, and how we imagined the future.
Being part of NASS at this stage of my career means access to mentors, global collaboration, and a place where my voice matters. When this capsule is opened, I want future spine professionals to know that in 2025 we believed in them—and we believed in building a field that is more interdisciplinary, more innovative, and more patient-focused than ever before.”
Vivek Babaria, DO, ISMM; NASS Early Career Advisory Committee, Spineline’s 20 Under 40 Class of 2024, member of the inaugural ISMM-certified cohort, and contributor to the development of ISMM curriculum
The NASS Time Capsule is more than an archive—it is a gift across time. It honors the past, it names the present, and it challenges the future.
As we celebrate our 40th anniversary, we do more than look back. We mark this milestone by sending a message forward—a message of legacy, of continuity, and of hope. NASS is not only the sum of its members today; it is also the promise of those who will follow. And in 2065, when the capsule is opened, we trust that our successors will find in it not only a record of what we were, but an invitation to continue the work of making spine care better for every patient, everywhere.