Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket is set in the uear Universal Century (U.C.) 0079, approximately 78 years into our future. Humanity changed the name of the calendar after the first "Space Colonies" (based on Gerard K. O'Neill's space colony ideas from the 70's) were settled.
At the dawn of the Universal Century, mankind was extremely overpopulated. The cencus had reached over 9 billion people. To escape the problems of pollution, resource shortages, and the like, the United Nations became the "Earth Federation" and hired officials to build and manage the space colonies, which were divided into groups called "Sides". Seven "Sides" are set up around Earth's orbit, each at a "lagrange point". A Lagrange point is a point in Earth's orbit where the forces of Earth's gravity, the Moon's gravity, and the object's own orbital velocity balance eachother out so the object stays put for an indefinite amount of time. Lagrange points 4 and 5, the most stable points, each house two Sides.
The colonies in Sides 1, 2, and 4-7 use O'Neill's "Island 3" design, measuring 32 kilometers (20 miles) long by 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) in diameter. Every two minutes, the colony rotates, simulating gravity through centripetal force. The colonies' walls are mostly made up of gigantic windows which help illuminate the colony's vast landscape. Mirrors set up on the colony's hull direct sunlight into the interior of the colony. A ring of agricultural and industrial modules around the colony supply food and manufactured goods. Regularly scheduled supply ships deliver supplies to the colony to keep the modules up and running. Huge batteries of solar panels supply power for the space colonies. Satellites beam this energy down onto the earth via microwave transmission.
Side 3's colonies, however, are built on a "sealed" design which, to increase the available land area, eliminates the windows. Artificial lighting illuminates these colonies to supplement the lack of sunlight.
In addition to colonies, mankind also lives on the moon and on asteroids. Von Braun City, a city built on that spot where Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon in A.D. 1969, is a huge sprawling city, home to tons of inhabitants and most of the moon's population. Grenada, another lunar city, will serve as the home of the Anaheim Electronics Corporation, founded in the late U.C. 0080's. Luna II, an asteroid originally called Juno moved into Earth's orbit to supply building materials for space colonies, is one of the Federation's main supply bases in outer space.
More info can be found in the About Gundam 0080 section.
Gundam 0080 takes place in December, U.C. 0079. It is set during the end of the One Year War, the conflict fought between the Earth Federation government and the Principality of Zeon rebels who wanted freedom from the cruel and opressive Federation. The One Year War began on January 3, U.C. 0079, and finally ended on January 1, U.C. 0080. The first week of the One-Year War was known as the One Year War, in which the Zeon used poison gas and colony drops to attack the Federation, reducing the Earth's population to one tenth of its original size. The Antarctic Treaty is then signed , making Side 6 neutral and prohibiting all colony-drop, nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare. The Zeon won an advantage at the start of the war, since they had a new type of weapon called a "mobile suit". These mobile suits (or MS) were much better than any conventional jet fighter that the Federation had. For more info about mobile suits, please see the Mecha section. The Zeon managed to conquer over half of the Earth's surface. However, by September, U.C. 0079, the Federation had its own prototype mobile suits, "Guntank", "Guncannon", and "Gundam", bringing the war to the Federation's advantage. By November, the Federation had created its own mass-produced MS, called "GM"s. The Federation slowly but surely drove the Zeon off the earth and into space, and finally, one operation after another, won the war at the final battle of A Bao A Qu, with many losses on both sides. The Zeon surrendered, and acted as a self-governing body of the Federation until late U.C. 0087.