This is an updated end-of-August list of our readers’ favorite posts, based on the number of times each post was visited during the times indicated below. The lists below include both Daily Wavelet posts and State of the Wave posts.

Timeframes of the readers’ lists below are: I) Favorites during August, and II) Favorites during the last 7 days.

To see readers’ favorite posts for each previous month, click HERE.

The lists below give only the top 5 favorites in each category in order of reader preference.
All posts below are clickable and their publishing dates are given.

Updated 9/1/2010

I. AUGUST — Readers’ Favorites

1) A Major Economic Boom by 2015? … The Lessons of Cleveland, Roosevelt, and Obama — 7/31/10
2) China Surges to #2 and Contemplates More Freedom: The Implications for Space — 8/21/10
3) DecaState of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for the Decade 2010 – 2020 — 3/06/10
4) Phobos: The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China! — 3/27/10
5) The Way Space Really Works — 7/31/10

II. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) Will the 2011 Economic Collapse Threaten the 2015 Maslow Window? — 6/08/10
2) “I feel the need … the need for speed,” insist Manned Mars Mission Planners — 10/05/09
3) Phobos: The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China! — 3/27/10
4) State of the Wave: Today’s Gloom & Doom, and the 2015 Boom — 8/29/10
5) OSIRIS-Rex — A Possible Stepping-Stone to Mars? — 8/16/10

Economic news — e.g., unemployment, economic growth, housing — suggests the hoped-for U.S. recovery has stalled. A couple of weeks ago the New York Times (8/15/10; J. Sommer) openly speculated about the possibility of “double-dip” recession.

Is this the growing spirit of the Great Boom of 2015?
Click (AP) .

Are we headed toward a Double-Dip recession?
The Huffington Post (8/16/10) reports that Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics and New York University, indicated that the “Risk of a double dip recession in advanced economies (US, Japan, Eurozone) has now risen to 40%.” And both David Rosenberg (the Gluskin Sheff economist) and Yale’s Robert Shiller (co-author of Animal Spirits) agree that the odds of a double dip recession in the U.S. are “higher than 50-50.” They both blame the problem on “jobs.”

Economists are concerned by the unexpected recent decline in U.S. GDP; for example, Q4 2009: 5.6%; Q1 2010: 3.7%; and Q2 2010: 1.6%. David Rosenberg predicts that the U.S. GDP for Q3 2010 “will be negative … and that the recession never ended.”

… Or a Japan-style “lost decade”?
Others even suggest we may be heading for a Japan-style “lost economic decade.” Michael Darda of MKM Partners (Wall Street Journal, 8/13/10) cautions that “These concerns are not without merit.” But he suggests that,

There are key differences between where we are now and where Japan was … (that) make it less likely that we’ll succumb to a deflationary double-dip recession or a lost decade.

To help reduce uncertainty and revitalize the economy, Darda recommends that we create fiscal policies that are “sustainable, pro-growth,” and that increasing marginal tax rates would negatively affect productivity and government revenues. In general, according to a WSJ editorial (8/17/10),

The way to avoid Japan’s fate is to avoid the same policy mistakes, which means returning to the policies of the 1980s that revived the U.S. after the last Great Recession.

What about the end of American optimism and the “new normal”?
Although we should remind ourselves that we’re immersed in a major political season, some commentators do insist that our economic challenges are indicative of what the future holds for the world and U.S.: “the new normal.” U.S. News & World Report editor in chief Mortimer Zuckerman (WSJ, 8/16/10) asks,

What was thought to be normal in the context of post-World War II recoveries? One is that four quarters into the recovery, real GDP would expand at an annual rate over 6%.

Recall that U.S. GDP for Q2 2010 was just 1.6%.

Zuckerman points out that we’ve spent trillions of dollars on stimulus and bailout packages and yet nothing is working “normally.” Then Zuckerman wisely illuminates the issue by asking this long-term question:

The answer is: Yes, but we are about to enter into a new 1960′s, Camelot-style decade — a Maslow Window — where growth and prosperity will exceed even JFK’s Boom. These transformative, twice-per-century decades feature very rapid, but sustained economic growth and are punctuated by great explorations (e.g., Lewis & Clark), huge technology projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and sadly even major wars (e.g., W W I). The next golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology should arrive by 2015.

What will trigger the Great Boom of 2015?
Every Maslow Window back to Jefferson and Lewis & Clark — including the 1960s Apollo Moon decade — features the rapid ascent of many in society to elevated levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy (expanding their world-views) due to affluence-induced ebullience generated by an exceptional boom. Indeed, according to this theory, without the Boom of 2015 there will be no widespread ebullience and hence no Maslow Window.

Here are a few scenarios that could be a bridge from where we are to the next Boom by 2015:

a) The Milken Institute Ramp-Up Scenario:
According to Ross DeVol (WSJ, 8/25/10) gloom and doom can be economically devastating.

There’s a point at which pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, scaring business away from investing or hiring. The dark tone of today’s discourse is at risk of doing just that.

Milken’s report on …America’s Return to Growth, based on extensive econometric analysis, features “measured optimism” because “A return to modest but sustainable growth is at hand.” They see the U.S. economy aided by rapid growth in Asia, strong investment in equipment and software, and record low interest rates. They reject the “new normal” as a barometer for long-term U.S. growth rates.

According to Milken, the ramp up to the next boom begins with a real plan to reduce the deficit, temporary extensions of the Bush tax cuts, and a more positive attitude toward job-creating businesses.

b) The 2015 TechCast.org Green Boom:
While the Milken ramp-up scenario will begin to restore confidence in the economy and stimulate more businesses to think expansively, TechCast, founded by former George Washington University professor William Halal, is forecasting a huge boom near 2015.

The constant drumbeat of cascading business failures is certainly daunting, but technology forecasts suggest that a green revolution, advanced auto designs, surging e-commerce, and other new business sectors are poised to lead the global economy out of today’s recession, producing a new economic boom at about 2015 … I lead a research team that forecasts the evolution of technology and its massive impacts that are changing the world. We’ve developed an intelligent website (www.TechCast.org) that pools the knowledge of 100 experts worldwide to forecast breakthroughs in all fields … Our forecasts show that today’s surging interest in green business should take off in four-five years … Entrepreneurs are working on alternative energy sources – wind turbines, biofuels, nuclear plants, and solar cells. This entire “green revolution” is growing 30-50% per year, roughly the same rate of the famous Moore’s Law that drives information technology to double every 2 years … Green technology is roughly a $500 billion market and expected to reach $10 trillion in 2020, larger than autos, health care, and defense.

A boom this size could easily produce the large-scale ebullience that would drive the 2015 Maslow Window, including the development of Space Based Solar Power as the ultimate source for global power.

c) The 2009-2015 Global Infrastructure Boom:
Stanford University, as part of its Collaboraory for Research on Global Projects, sponsored a paper in 2009 by Eric Gerritsen of Global Internet Advisors, on “The Global Infrastructure Boom of 2009-2015: Strategic Economic Consequences for America, China and the Global Economy.”

Gerritsen observes that,

In response to the financial crisis of 2008 governments around the world have pledged to spend trillions of dollars over the next few years on what is loosely called “infrastructure” and what amounts to the biggest global build-out of physical economic assets in the history of man.

This global infrastructure boom will intensively unfold between 2009-2015 and will transform how the world looks, gets educated, moves goods and services, creates wealth, treats the sick, cares for the poor, powers its homes and businesses, and wages war.

The amounts of infrastructure money about to slosh into the world economy defy imagination: The Obama Administration will spend $150 billion of its $787 billion stimulus plan on infrastructure and is expected to add to that; China has pledged $585 billion and stands ready to do more; India is expected to spend $500 billion on infrastructure over from now till 2015; the EU $252 billion; Japan $129 billion; Canada $12 billion; Australia $4.7 billion, Singapore $13.8 billion; Germany $42 billion; and so on.

Gerritsen asserts that, during the next 5 years, the global infrastructure boom will have significant global economic, political, and technology impacts, and that it will likely drive “economic system convergence.” How this will play out for the relative positions of the states involved is anyone’s guess at this point. But it does provide a positive framework for the development of large-scale infrastructure (e.g., space based solar power) in space, as the 2015 Maslow Window swings open.

d) The New International Space Age:
Both long-term (e.g., 200 year long wave timing) and near-term (e.g., the Panic of 2008) indicators point to a new Maslow Window opening near 2015 that will feature the new international Space Age. Please search the last 2+ years of this weblog for the details, but the signals continue to appear.

For example, Putin announced this weekend that Russia will launch its manned space missions from a new space center 3600 miles east of Moscow, starting in 2018. In a display of Maslow-style ebullience and national pride, he called the construction “one of the biggest and ambitious projects of modern Russia” which “gives opportunity to thousands of young professionals to use their talent.” Recently I have suggested that Russia and China may decide to leverage their joint 2011 robotic mission to Phobos into a major bilateral collaboration for manned Mars colonization sometime after 2015. If taken by surprise, this could propagate Sputnik-like shocks though America’s economic, political, military, and educational institutions.

I’ve pointed out previously that, ironically — based on the last 200 years of macroecnomic patterns and global trends — the Panic of 2008 shows we’re within 3 to 5 years of a major economic boom and a new international Space Age. But the Panic/Recession seems to have triggered a political realignment in the U.S. that led to President Obama’s election and is continuing.

As usual over the last 200 years, this transformative event is announcing the approach of the next golden age starting in 2015, and has many interesting parallels with the Panic of 1893 and the ascendance of the ultra-ebullient Theodore Roosevelt during the Peary/Panama Maslow Window. Like a century ago, our current political realignment is motivated by — not political party or social class — but the return to prosperity. It’s always interesting that prosperity becomes Priority #1 as we approach a new Maslow Window.

The U.S. political realignment seems to be continuing based on the estimated 300,000+ attendees — an “enormous and impassioned crowd” — at yesterday’s spiritual rally in Washington, D.C., as suggested by today’s New York Times front page photo (8/29/10).

One way or the other, China will be a major player in space and on Earth during the next 10 -15 years (i.e., the 2015 Maslow Window)

The New York Times (8/15/10) concurs.

After three decades of spectacular growth, China passed Japan in the second quarter to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States. The milestone, though anticipated for some time, is the most striking evidence yet that China’s ascendance is for real and that the rest of the world will have to reckon with a new economic superpower.

Will China ascend to global leadership in space during the next 10-15 years?
Click .

The Times suggested that China’s surge will continue and may eventually approach the much larger capacity of the U.S. “as early as 2030.”

China’s continuing growth fits well into a scenario that 21stCenturyWaves.com sketched over 2 years ago in “10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space”:

China’s space program stretches back more than 35 years, suggesting that space will expand in importance because of the growing economic, technological, and scientific culture of the country … China’s very rapid economic growth hovers around 10% annually. This is very important internally to the Communist Party leaders, as well as to major export sources like Wal-Mart! It also provides the financial cornerstone for future Chinese technology and space initiatives.

China’s challenges include its low GDP per capita value of $ 3,600 –similar to “impoverished nations ike Algeria, El Salvador and Albania” – versus $ 46,000 for the United States. Interestingly, the Times credits the Communist Party with China’s surge.

There is little disputing that under the direction of the Communist Party, China has begun to reshape the way the global economy functions by virtue of its growing dominance of trade, its huge hoard of foreign exchange reserves and United States government debt and its voracious appetite for oil, coal, iron ore and other natural resources.

Quite a different view is offered by a Chinese General recently in the popular Hong Kong magazine, Phoenix, in which he sees a choice for China of either “American-style democracy or Soviet-style collapse.”
According to General Liu Yazhou,

If a system fails to let its citizens breathe freely and release their creativity to the maximum extent, and fails to place those who best represent the system and its people into leadership positions, it is certain to perish … ‘The secret of US success is neither Wall Street nor Silicon Valley, but its long-surviving rule of law and the system behind it … The American system is said to be ‘designed by genius and for the operation of the stupid’. A bad system makes a good person behave badly, while a good system makes a bad person behave well. Democracy is the most urgent; without it there is no sustainable rise.

This is similar to American self-described “panda hugger” Thomas P. M. Barnett’s view (2/12/10) about the necessity for more freedom in China.

Once the extensive growth period is done and the “golden period” of demographic advantage dissipates, there is no advantage to having authoritarian government–despite the many myths recently created about the “superiority” of China’s single-party state. China is heading to the all-things-being-equal part of advanced development, and when a regime reaches that point, democracies simply perform better–not by how they run things but by how they get the hell out of the way of those who really need to run things, aka the private sector.

Such a transition might actually be easier than it sounds based on the impressions of international analyst Chris Mayer who recently visited Beijing and reports that “A more bustling capitalistic city would be hard to imagine … (and) There must be more communists in Berkeley than in Beijing.”

On the other hand, despite China’s 11.1% growth rate in 1st half of 2010, Stratfor cautions against linear forecasting and, in fact, sees a “Japan-like collapse” for China by 2015. In their Decade Forecast for 2005 – 2015 (2/5/05) Stratfor asserted the following:

Perhaps our most dramatic forecast is that China will suffer a meltdown like Japan and East and Southeast Asia before it. The staggering proportion of bad debt, enormous even in relation to official dollar reserves, represents a defining crisis for China. China will not disappear by any means, any more than Japan or South Korea has. However, extrapolating from the last 30 years is unreasonable. We also expect there to be significant political consequences … Why, then, if STRATFOR sees a China on the verge — if not already in the midst — of massive internal upheaval, is there a general global acceptance of the idea that not only is China on an unstoppable rise, but that people should pour their money into the Chinese economy? In part, this is due to tunnel vision — assessors of the Chinese economy are looking only at the booming center-coastal economies in and around Shanghai. In part, it is intentional self-delusion, a failure to connect the dots.

China’s approaching tipping point presents an opportunity to highlight trends — without giving away too many trade secrets — that are illuminated by the empirical, long-term approach of 21stCenturyWaves.com. Here are a few.

1) Gen Liu Yazhou agrees with Stratfor.
After several admirable years of sticking to their unpopular, but rational China-collapse-by-2015 forecast, Stratfor recently found an important ally: the courageous Chinese General. Media hype about China catching the U.S. economically by 2030 appears increasingly unrealistic. But it also weakens somewhat the case for private investors to make long-term financial commitments to China’s economy. (Also, see #4 below.)

2) The Japanese deflationary decade was consistent with Long Wave trends.
According to the Wall Street Journal (8/17/10), “After its property and stock bubbles burst in 1990, Japan also embarked on what may have been the longest and most expensive Keynesian policy experiment in world history.” This deflationary trajectory mirrored the downward trend of the long economic wave which reached its trough in the late 1990s. By contrast, the U.S. experienced a remarkable economic boom in the 1990s, although — possibly due to long wave effects — it never gained the momentum or had the widespread demographic impact of the 1960s Kennedy Boom (which triggered the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window).

For more, see “200 Years of GDP Trends Support a Near-Term, New Space Age.”

3) Will China choose American-style democracy over Chinese communism?
China insiders insist that the country is held together by rapid economic growth and nationalism — both of which, of course, are strongly connected to China’s space program — not devotion to the Communist Party. Thus a near-term China collapse could indeed trigger major political changes like those advocated by General Liu Yazhou.

4) A near-term, Japan-style Collapse of China Will Be Relatively Brief.
There are at least 2 major reasons why a China collapse will be brief: a) Political reforms in China would be expected to stimulate the Chinese economy through increased freedom and innovation, and b) the dynamic upward turn of the global economy — much like we experienced in 2007 just before the financial panic — as we ascend toward the 2015 Maslow Window, will shorten the Chinese deflationary interval.

5) A Grand Alliance for Space or Apollo-style Competition?
The juxtaposition in time of a likely China collapse by 2015 accompanied by liberal political reforms, and the approach of the 2015 Maslow Window, is not as coincidental as it seems, and will virtually guarantee that China will not experience anything like the Japan Deflationary Decade. In fact, the real possibility exists that China will rebound early in the 2015 Maslow Window to become a (or “the”) global leader in space.

One key indicator to watch is China’s possible participation in a joint Russia-China manned Mars initiative after 2015 as an outgrowth of their joint mission in 2011 to Phobos.

Ironically, a robust, growing Chinese economy – which is in everyone’s economic interest around the world — might be more likely to trigger a new Apollo-style space race, instead of a more productive ‘Global Alliance for Space,’ that might be favored in less prosperous times.

I became convinced around 1990 while with General Dynamics that if you want a safe, inexpensive, and near-term path to the human exploration and colonization of Mars, there was only one way to go: Establish a manned base on Phobos (and/or Deimos) and mine the interior for ices or hydrated minerals, while you direct in real-time a global swarm of robotic rovers exposing scientific secrets on the Martian surface.

Is this mountain-size Earth-crossing asteroid the next step to Mars?
Click

One key reason is the stunning, but still obscure fact that every 2 years a launch window opens that makes it easier (energy-wise) to get to Phobos than the surface of our own Moon! But, although we currently have plenty of imagery of both Martian moons, we still aren’t quite ready to pull this off.

We need a sample-return mission from Phobos — like that planned by Russia and China (Phobos-Grunt) for launch in 2011 — or we can wait for Mother Nature to deliver a Phobos-like asteroid to our vicinity. That’s OSIRIS-Rex (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) which, if given final approval by NASA in summer, 2011, will target near-Earth asteroid 1999 RQ 36.

OSIRIS is About Science and Security:
Not surprisingly, NASA is officially selling OSIRIS based on its impressive science and Earth-security potential. About 1/2 kilometer wide, RQ 36 “Is a treasure trove of organic material, so it holds clues to how Earth formed and life got started,” says Joseph Nuth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

OSIRIS would offer an interplanetary first: return of samples from an asteroid for composition analysis in labs around the world. OSIRIS would launch in 2016, acquire samples of the asteroid in 2018, and return them to Earth in 2023. What a wonderful way to celebrate the opening of the new international Space Age during the 2015 Maslow Window!!

RQ 36 is also becoming famous for its designation by NASA as a “potentially hazardous asteroid” and that it has about a 1 in a 1000 chance of hitting Earth in 2182; this probability is quite uncertain as well as far-future. But veteran planetary scientist Clark Chapman notes that if it did occur, “It would be an enormous impact, like hundreds of the biggest nuclear bombs ever built exploding at once, creating a crater maybe 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] across,” although the impact would not be civilization-threatening.

The University of Arizona to the Rescue!
According to the UA News,

Michael Drake, director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, will serve as principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx. OSIRIS-REx brings together the UA’s leadership in planetary science, Lockheed Martin’s extensive experience in sample-return mission development and operations and the Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) expertise in project management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. The OSIRIS-REx payload includes instruments provided by the UA, GSFC, Arizona State University and the Canadian Space Agency.

Mike Drake and I came to the University of Arizona at the same time: I was a new graduate student who came over from UCLA (to work for Gerard Kuiper), and he was a new assistant professor. Now he leads the Lunar and Planetary Lab that was created and initially led by the legendary “Father of Planetary Science” Gerard Kuiper.

Does OSIRIS Relate to Phobos?
Given that history I was curious if Mike saw any scientific relation between OSIRIS and future exploration of Phobos. In his email to me, he indicated that,

OSIRIS-REx is a free standing mission competing in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. So it has no programmatic relationship with any other mission. That said, our target asteroid (RQ36 for short) is an organic-rich NEO. Phobos is also probably organic-rich. So many of our scientific objectives relating to the origin of organics that led to life might also be satisfied with a pristine sample return from Phobos.

Regarding any similarities between OSIRIS and Phobos-Grunt, Mike admitted,

I don’t know much about PHOBOS-GRUNT. However, inasmuch as it succeeds in returning a Phobos sample to Earth for study, its results could be overlapping or complementary with respect to organics … How organically clean their mission will be is unknown to me. Although both are small objects, RQ36 is in free orbit around the Sun while Phobos is obviously in an unstable orbit around Mars … So operationally a Phobos mission would be very different from OSIRIS-REx.

The Russia-China Connection:
The timing and goals of OSIRIS versus Phobos-Grunt are especially interesting because — as I suggested in my decade forecasts and also more recently — Russia and China are becoming well-positioned for a joint manned Mars exploration initiative sometime after 2015. This is an example of a world-altering event with Sputnik-like potential to trigger a new space race as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window.

However, after missing the 2009 Mars launch window, Russia is targeting a 2011 launch to Phobos and Mars; e.g., this date is repeated on The Planetary Society website in connection with their LIFE experiment. Presumably Phobos-Grunt would acquire Phobos samples by 2013, while Drake has confirmed that OSIRIS launch would not be until 2016 with samples returned to Earth in 2023. In any case, even if Phobos-Grunt slipped another launch window, it would still be expected to acquire Phobos samples well before OSIRIS was even launched.

I always enjoy Cumbrian Sky, the astro blog by Stuart Atkinson of the Eddington Astronomical Society in England.

Surprisingly, the financial Panic of 2008 supports our forecast that humanity’s future in space is just around the corner…!
Click

Recently Stuart hosted the Carnival of Space #165 which included my post: The Way Space Really Works. As usual, I enjoyed his intriguing introduction to my post:

Many people, myself included, fear that we really have stalled in our efforts to get people off Earth and start spreading out across the solar system, and are frustrated that there are no signs of our self-imposed exile on Earth ending. But there are optimists out there, and one of them is Bruce Cordell, who firmly believes that manned space exploration is just half a decade away from receiving a seriously hard kick up the backside. Why? You’ll have to go to his inspiring and thought-provoking 21st Century Waves blog to find out how space “really works”… or will work in 2015…

Thanks for your comments Stuart!

It always pleases me to be considered an optimist, although I’m just tracking macroeconomic and other trends over the last 200 years that make it pretty clear we’re in for excitement around 2015. And many short-term indicators also converge on this result.

For example, check Bill Halal at TechCast.org; their continuous online Delphi polling forecasts a major economic boom in 2015. In this context, it’s reasonable to expect an Apollo-size space program in response to a JFK-size boom — so we do!

But forgive me for not being as optimistic as I’d like to be. Multi-century history indicates that Maslow Windows don’t last very long. For example, Apollo was in serious political trouble by 1966 and wound up having the last 3 Apollo Moon missions canceled. Imagine what might have happened if Vietnam had heated up 2-4 years earlier than it did — we might have lost the whole program.

So this time it’s important that we — Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Americans or whomever it is –strive for self-sufficiency in space beyond Earth orbit to avoid another “Apollo pause” like we’ve had for the last 40 years…

This is an updated end-of-July list of our readers’ favorite posts, based on the number of times each post was visited during the times indicated below. The lists below include both Daily Wavelet posts and State of the Wave posts.

Timeframes of the readers’ lists below are: I) Favorites during July, and II) Favorites during the last Year.

To see readers’ favorite posts for each previous month, click HERE.

The lists below give only the top 5 favorites in each category in order of reader preference.
All posts below are clickable and their publishing dates are given.

Updated 8/1/2010

I. JULY — Readers’ Favorites

1) State of the Wave: Why No One’s Been to the Moon in 40 Years — How Soon We’ll Go Again — 7/11/10
2) Was Apollo a Beginning, A Dead-End, or…? — Penetrating Polarized Views — 7/22/10
3) The Moon is Not Enough…! — 11/22/08
4) Space: The Fractal Frontier — How Complexity Drives Exploration — 5/01/10
5) Phobos: The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China! — 3/27/10

II. THE LAST YEAR (365 DAYS) — Readers’ Favorites

1) How President Obama is Creating the New Space Age — 9/24/09
2) State of the Wave: 10 Space Trends for 2010 — 1/26/10
3) Space: The Fractal Frontier — How Complexity Drives Exploration — 5/01/10
4) State of the Wave: Why No One’s Been to the Moon in 40 Years — How Soon We’ll Go Again — 7/11/10
5) DecaState of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for the Decade 2010 – 2020 — 3/06/10

Recently a good friend of mine — a member of the great Apollo generation, those who actually used their engineering, scientific, and management expertise to send us to the Moon — was lamenting the current dormant state and uncertan future of the U.S. space program, and asking how we can change this.

His bottom line was, “What needs to be done?”
(This post is my slightly altered response.)

These same issues came up in Freeman Dyson’s talk at ISDC 2010 recently. What we should do is keep working and be patient. But we won’t have to wait much longer…!

Here’s the way space really works …

Global space advocates — Young and Old — You make space work …
And this BOOM’s for You!

Click

Big Apollo-style programs (e.g., the Panama Canal) come in cycles. To develop political support for them requires many people in society to feel like they’re “getting ahead”, and that requires a John F. Kennedy-style economic boom which “lifts all boats.”

1) The reason no one’s been back to the Moon in 40 years is simple: There hasn’t been a Kennedy-style boom since the 1960s …
Click: Why 40 years?

2) Complexity theory gives us insight into the punctuated equilibrium character of great explorations from Apollo all the way back to Lewis and Clark … and to sketch the future …
Click: Space – The Fractal Frontier

3) I think the new international Space Age is almost upon us (within 3-5 yrs). And part of the reason is, ironically, the financial Panic of 2008 and our current great recession …
Click: 10 Space Trends

4) I first experimented with some of these ideas in Space Policy in 1996 but didn’t really get interested in it until, of all things, NATO had an international conference in Portugal in 2005 on how long-term economic trends might be influencing warfare and global security. And in my talks to all kinds of audiences over the last several years, my experience is that if you can actually personally remember the 1960s it will probably be easier to grasp than if you’re younger.

But in fact, given current trends, young people — especially if you were born before 2000 — are in for a wonderful cosmic ride. 
Click: Young people and their new Space Age

Last week well-known futurist Bill Halal, founder of TechCast, emailed me that they are forecasting an economic boom in 2015. TechCast runs a continuous online Delphi Poll with numerous experts in a variety of key areas. He knew I’d be interested because 21stCenturyWaves.com also sees one then.

Our prediction is fundamentally based on spectacular societal pulses of activity (“Maslow Windows“) composed of great explorations, macro engineering projects, and major wars. They appear fundamentally driven by rhythmic, twice-per-century 1960s-style economic booms, over the last 200+ years. The last one began in the late 1950s with the Apollo Moon program, which, given a long wave of about 56 years, pointed to 2015 as the opening of the new international Space Age. Indeed, nearly 15 years ago in Space Policy, I forecasted that “the decade from 2015 to 2025 will be the analog of the 1960s …” (Cordell, 1996).

Does the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 — including Charles Ferris’ original wheel — actually point to a major boom by 2015? (Or is this just “circular” reasoning? )
Click .

More recently — since the NATO Advanced Workshop on Kondratieff Waves, Warfare, and World Security held in Portugal in 2005 — and especially since the crisis in September, 2008, we’ve identified a number of diverse trends that support a major economic boom beginning in 2015. A few of these are: 1) the financial panic of 2008 itself and its great recession, 2) growth of large non-space macro engineering projects, 3) accelerating global interest in exploration and development of the Moon, 4) excitement about new commercial suborbital space opportunities, and –perhaps most surprisingly — 5) stunning historical parallels that indicate the economic and political trends of ~100 years ago may be relevant to today.

Brief Philosophical Pause: It’s appropriate here to remind readers that 21stCenturyWaves.com uses an empirical, long-term approach to project what we think will happen, not necessarily what we want to occur. This is especially important in topics like this post that contain large political and economic content.

The World Columbian Exposition of 1893 was Ebullient
Life-long Chicago-area resident Mary Kulberg first alerted me to the extraordinary World Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, that celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in America.

This was a world-class, watershed cultural event. It featured 200 new buildings of classical architecture that were visited for 6 months by over 27 million people. Highlights included the memorable “White City” and even Charles Ferris’ original 264 foot high Ferris Wheel with 36 cars, each of which held 60 people!

Most importantly, the Fair became a symbol of the growing feeling of American Exceptionalism. And it is impressive evidence for growing “ebullience” in 1893 — within a decade of the spectacular Peary/Panama/T. Roosevelt Maslow Window.

By comparison with today, significant evidence for an ebullient approach to the anticipated 2015 Maslow window is what, on July 12, 2007, Fortune Magazine called “the greatest economic boom ever.”

The Panic of 1893 Led to Prosperity
The bankruptcy of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad on February 23, 1893 signaled the beginning of the Panic of 1893. It’s analogous to Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 that marked the onset of the Panic of 2008.

The Panic of 1893 began about 6 years before the extraordinary economic boom that triggered the early 20th century Maslow Window. Assuming a similar interval between the Panic of 2008 and the next Maslow WIndow, a large economic boom should appear by 2015.

1890s Unemployment Triggered “Coxey’s Army”
Although the Columbian Expo officially opened in October, 1892, people were not admitted until May 1, 1893, over 2 months after the Panic began. So, although the early effects of the 1890s great recession were severe, Expo attendance surged, much as it has at the current World Expo 2010 in Shanghai (started May 1, 2010) where attendance records are being set (~70 M expected visitors at current rate).

Nevertheless unemployment was above 10%, by current estimates, for most of the 1890s great recession. A protest march led by Jacob Coxey reached Washington, D.C. on April 30, 1894 with about 500 men. They demanded that President Grover Cleveland create jobs through public works programs.

Like Coxey’s Army, the Tea Party Movement is a national, grass-roots protest which began soon after the Panic of 2008, in February, 2009. However, Tea Party members have focused more on reducing big government, debt, and taxes, and are expected to be influential in mid-term elections this year..

Coxey’s Army didn’t die out in 1894. Another march successfully reached Washington, D.C. in 1914, shortly after the collapse of the Peary/Panama/T. Roosevelt Maslow Window and the start of World War I. One observer was L. Frank. Baum, which has led to Coxey-like interpretations of his book, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The 1890s Great Recession Caused A Political Realignment
Because the Panic of 1893 resulted in wage cuts and job losses, it contributed to major labor unrest. The Pullman strike — the first national strike in U.S. history — eventually involved 250,000 workers in 27 states; tragically much of the Fair was destroyed by fire during the strike’s peak.

President Cleveland determined that the strike was a threat to public safety and the U.S. mail and sent 12,000 U.S. Army troops to assist U.S. Marshals in breaking it. Illinois governor John Altgeld was infuriated by Cleveland’s use of federal force and managed ultimately to keep him from being renominated at the Democratic convention of 1896.

Because of Cleveland’s inability to deal with the effects of the Panic of 1893, McKinley won the presidency in 1896 and presided over the return to prosperity. In 1901 McKinley’s successor, President Theodore Roosevelt led the U.S. into perhaps its most ebullient Maslow Decade in history.

A Japanese-style Decade?
Although we see many intriguing historical parallels, it’s still not obvious how the story will play out.
For example, the 1890s Great Recession (1893-99) was a “double-dip.” Will our current recovery falter similarly?

Everyone agrees the recovery has slowed, and the signs are not good. Commerce Department reported today that the U.S. economy grew at only 2.4% annualized in the 2nd quarter, down from 3.7% in the first. According to the New York Times (7/30/10), “Many economists expect growth rates under 2 percent for the remainder of the year.” Even more ominous is a recent warning (New York Times, 7/29/10) from James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, that current policies put America at risk of “a Japanese-style deflationary outcome within the next several years.” This might eclipse the 1890s contraction.

A weakening recovery, unemployment near 10%, record deficits, etc. are dragging President Obama’s job approval ratings to the low 40′s; and Congressional approval is much lower. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recently suggested Republicans could retake the House this year. Others believe the Senate is also vulnerable. Some are even openly suggesting that Hillary Clinton will challenge Obama for the presidential nomination in 2012.

A Continuing Political Realignment?
Like its 1893 counterpart, the Panic of 2008 triggered a political realignment with the election of President Obama and Democratic supermajorities in Congress. Given current economic trends, it’s likely that Republicans will experience significant Congressional gains in November, and may continue the political realignment — but this time in their favor.

Although the presidential election of 2012 seems far away, few economists are forecasting dramatic improvements in economic growth and unemployment prior to that time. And current trends are consistent with an 1890s-style replay, including Hillary winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 2012, Obama becoming a 1-term Cleveland-like victim of the Panic of 2008, and Hillary losing to a prosperity-oriented Republican in the style of McKinley in 1896 — whose eventual successor was the ultra-ebullient Theodore Roosevelt — who would beome the leader of the 2015 Maslow Window.

Although current history is not necessarily hostage to an 1890s-style replay, one thing seems likely: the drive for prosperity in the form of a major economic boom commencing by 2015. Over the last 200+ years, this stage in the long business cycle (the “long wave”) consistently features a major economic boom that drives unprecedented, ebullient exploration and technology programs immersed in a Camelot-like zeitgeist.

President Obama’s space policy has “polarized” the space community like never before. It has resulted in three particularly interesting types of responses: strategic, commercial, and political. We’ll take a peek at all three and highlight their limitations in the context of the long-term, fundamental drivers of human expansion into the cosmos.

Are Robert Bigelow’s inflatable space modules the future in space?
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Former Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, Dr. John Logsdon, recently offered a Space News Commentary (6/30/10) from his new book manuscropt, John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (to appear early next year). He defends Obama’s policy, as does Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal (7/21/10), although Jenkins’ focus is more on space-related business.

Logsdon is an astute, long-term analyst of the space scene and is to be congratulated for integrating the last 50 years (almost one full long wave) in space, but unfortunately, it leads to some misconceptions. Without recognizing the full implications of the last 200 years of great human explorations and massive technology projects — back to Lewis and Clark — it’s possible to miss fundamental themes that permeate them all and point to a spectacular, near-term golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology.

Is the Impact of Apollo a net negative?

According to Logsdon,

Sending 12 astronauts to the lunar surface was a great achievement and will forever be a proud part of American history. But in my judgment, while Apollo’s impacts on subsequent U.S. human spaceflight activities have been lasting, they have been on balance negative.

Actually Apollo was a brilliant, strategic response by JFK to long-term economic and geopolitical forces that reached a critical point in 1961. Three other 1960s-style critical points (i.e., “Maslow Windows”) are separated by 55 to 60 years back to Lewis and Clark. Many current indicators — including long-term GDP trends and the Panic of 2008 — point to a new Maslow Window opening by 2015.

Apollo was aimed at beating the Russians to the Moon; it was not propelled by a long-term vision of space exploration. To meet Kennedy’s “before this decade is out” goal, NASA chose a set of hardware systems and an architecture optimized for getting to the Moon as soon as possible; these choices had unfortunate consequences.

Logsdon is exactly right about Kennedy’s Cold War space goals; they were to win the space race, not to set the stage for large-scale space colonization. So it’s really “Monday-morning quarterbacking” to complain about their “unfortunate consequences.” Given the extraordinary historical context in which Kennedy’s program was conceived, it indeed — by any fair measure –was a success.

And Jenkins believes that “NASA’s tragedy is that it never recovered from the success of Apollo.”

What happened during the 40 years after Apollo?

I recently explained this in terms of the lack of wide-spread, affluence-induced ebullience driven by rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms (e.g., the 1960s Kennedy boom). But according to Logsdon,

One way of understanding the 40 years since Apollo is by viewing the space shuttle and the international space station as attempts to preserve and take advantage of that (Apollo) infrastructure, work force and industrial base. Pursuing an “Apollo on steroids” approach to the Constellation program was an understandable sequel to those programs, once again trying to employ the heritage left by Apollo. But this, like the hardware developed for Apollo and then abandoned, is ultimately a dead-end approach.

Logsdon supports his point by quoting Yale sociologist Gary Brewer (writing 20+ years ago) who observed that

NASA during the Apollo program came close to being “a perfect place” — the best organization that human beings could create to accomplish a particular goal. But, suggested Brewer, “perfect places do not last for long.” NASA was “no longer a perfect place.” The organization needed “new ways of thinking, new people, and new means.” He added “The innocent clarity of purpose, the relatively easy and economically painless public consent, and the technical confidence [of Apollo] … are gone and will probably never occur again.

Logsdon’s and Brewer’s positions regarding new Apollo-style programs as a “dead-end approach” that “will probably never occur again,” are simply not supported by history. In fact, great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (e.g., World War I) cluster together exclusively near rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms, over the last 200 years.

Without the crucial, but straightforward insight that space exploration is closely related to great human explorations of the past (at least back to Lewis and Clark), Logsdon and Brewer miss the point about the future. But Brewer’s description of Apollo as “a perfect place” is exactly what we would expect of a fractal Maslow Window during its critical state.

Is near-term commercial, habitation, and scientific development of Earth-Moon space still in the cards?

Jenkins (WSJ, 7/21/10) worries that

Many of the New Space companies have made it thus far by consuming the fortunes of celebrity entrepreneurs … (but) That can’t go on forever …

This is especially critical because

Gone is most of the money Mr. Obama earmarked to give private entrepreneurs … The customer they have their eye on (now) isn’t NASA but hotel magnate Robert Bigelow, who has two prototype modular space habitats already in orbit but lacks affordable transport.

Surprisingly, Logsdon sees the private sector taking on “a larger role in providing transportation service for people traveling to low Earth orbit” as fundamentally “a side issue.” To him, the big enchilada is “developing capabilities for going beyond Earth orbit.”

Again historical precedent illuminates the future. Humans first went to the Moon in 1969 during the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window. And Apollo is analogous to Lewis and Clark opening up the Great Northwest during their Maslow Window ~200 years ago. But it took about 1 long wave until the transportation routes, the availability of land, and the California Gold Rush motivated many people to go there to prosper. Likewise, it took almost one long wave (~ 50 years) to develop the systems that will allow entrepreneurs to profit from sending people into space. And because going into space is even harder than California, it’s still being perfected. But the point is that Richard Branson and many others will soon profit from this new “Gold Rush” in space.

“A polarized debate unprecedented in my more than four decades of close observation of space policymaking…” according to Logsdon, who then complains several times in his short piece about how poorly the government has presented and defended the new Obama space policy, including:
1) “…an incoherent defense of the new strategy…”
2) “Obama confused the situation even further in his April 15 speech…”
3) “There is a coherent explanation of what is being proposed, but NASA has given it little emphasis…”
4) “The White House and NASA dug a rather deep hole is mismanaging the rollout of the new strategy…”

It’s been my experience that when politicians or their advocates complain about the way a key policy or strategy is officially miscommunicated, it’s usually because the policy itself is weak and/or unpopular.

What could be wrong with Obama’ s space policy? According to Logsdon,
the following didn’t help much:

announcing a quickly conceived resuscitation of Orion, blowing off the Moon as a valuable destination, and setting an ambiguous target for a heavy lift vehicle.

Couldn’t agree more and you can see more here.

Logsdon concludes that,

The greatest threat to U.S. space leadership would come from our political system insisting on staying with the Apollo-era approach to the future…

This comment misses the key historical lesson of the rhythmic pulses of great explorations and grandiose macro engineering projects (including Apollo) over the last 200 years.

In fact, it’s not “our political system” that fundamentally drove Apollo. It’s actually the laws of economics and human nature.

Over the last 2 centuries, whenever humans could indulge their raw exploration passions, they did. In the modern world, this occurs mainly during short-lived, but exceptionally ebullient Maslow Windows that are driven by unparalleled 1960s-style economic booms.

Each Maslow Window has a different focus but the 2015 Window is likely to feature new commercial activities in space, international Moon bases, space-based solar power technology developments, and possibly the first humans to Mars.

But better enjoy it while it’s here, because long wave timing indicates the following Maslow Window isn’t expected until 2071!

As we search for clues to our economic future by looking for parallels between our current great recession and the past (e.g., the 1930s), it’s logical to also seek historical parallels relating other great events that are strongly dependent on economic conditions. For example, the manned space program, and specifically, human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars.

Viewed in this context, President Obama’s recent cancellation of Constellation — America’s program to return to the Moon by 2020 — is not a big surprise. It’s just a speed bump on the road to a near-term Moon base, including international commercial and scientific development of Earth-Moon space.

This glimpse of the future is not based on hope or optimism, but on long-term trends in the economy, technology, and geopolitics which point to a near-term re-ignition of President Kennedy’s nearly 50-year old vision of human exploration of the Moon and planets.

The 1960s Apollo Moon program was the greatest combined exploration and technology event in the history of the world, because it was off-world!
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If we could understand what fundamentally drove Apollo, we might glimpse our future in space. And yet, as we discovered again last July during celebrations of the Moon landing’s 40th anniversary, we still can’t agree on why Apollo moonwalking ended in 1972. For example, Right Stuff author Tom Wolfe believes “the answer is obvious. NASA had neglected to recruit a corps of philosophers,” such as Saturn V developer Wernher von Braun, to explain the real meaning of Apollo to the public. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Heavens and the Earth (1985), Walter McDougall explains that

the bold lunar goal … encouraged Congress and the nation to believe that Apollo was the space program … Once the space race was over and won, Americans could turn back to their selfish pursuits.

Formerly with CNN, Miles O’Brien dismisses the most obvious manned space challenge — cost.

If you don’t want to mention the cost of the wars, if you would rather not get into Wall Street or Detroit bailouts, or if you don’t want to tell them the money we spend on the space program is about the same as our annual expenditure on coffee — why not mention India?…Calcutta can afford it — and Cleveland can’t?

This is an important clue. Apollo cost about $ 150 B (in 2007 USD). Imagine the Apollo-level manned space programs we could have funded with only a fraction of Obama’s initial $ 800+ B stimulus package. But although the money magically appeared, Americans did not spontaneously demand Moonbases or manned Mars missions. So the availability of money, by itself, does not fundamentally drive big space programs.

Wolfe alludes to powerful. but short-lived forces permeating Apollo: “

Everybody, including Congress, was caught up in the adrenal rush of it all.

This included the quintessential media figure of the time, Walter Cronkite, who predicted that after Apollo 11, “everything else that has happened in our time is going to be an asterisk.”

And O’Brien concludes that.

Truth is, we have done nothing to equal (much less top) the accomplishments of Apollo. And even worse, we haven’t tried. We did someting truly great, but then walked away from it.

This emotional component — and its rapid demise in the late 1960s — explains why money is not enough. The people also have to feel good.

This is reminiscent of a Keynesian concept called “animal spirits,” used to explain why investors become either irrationally exhuberant or unnecessarily discouraged by business conditions during a boom or a bust. However, public support for Apollo was not primarily driven by the promise of profits from space, nor in the end, even by beating the Soviets to the Moon.

Instead the unprecedented, widespread affluence from the Kennedy boom momentarily catapulted many average citizens to elevated levels of Maslow’s hierarchy where their expanded worldviews made the Apollo program seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible — as reflected in 1960s opinion polls.

Indeed, the strong connection between manned planetary exploration and Maslow-related values was emphasized in 1961 by the National Academy of Science’s Space Science Board, chaired by Lloyd Berkner, in their influential report to President Kennedy.

Man’s exploration of the Moon and planets (is) potentially the greatest inspirational venture of this century and one in which the whole world can share; inherent here are great and fundamental philosophical and spiritual values which find a response in man’s questing spirit and his intellectual self-realization.

But the Maslow effect was short-lived. As early as 1966, growing distress over Vietnam and budget issues began to erode affluence-induced “ebullience,” and this 1960s Apollo “Maslow Window” rapidly closed, as evidenced by Nixon’s cancellation of the last three Apollo Moon missions.

As recently as Memorial Day weekend in Chicago at the International Space Development Conference 2010, distinguished physicist and space scientist Freeman Dyson lamented that “we have been stuck in LEO for 40 years.” In the context of Apollo, this is consistent with the absence — since the 1960s — of a post-World War II-style long boom culminating in widespread, Camelot-style ebullience.

We almost got one started in 2007 when Fortune magazine (7/12/07) celebrated the “greatest economic boom ever.” But it was interrupted by the financial Panic of 2008 and our subsequent great recession. Will 2007′s great boom be revived? And how soon?

Intriguing parallels with Apollo go back at least 200 years to Lewis and Clark, but the last century is particularly revealing. For example, the financial Panic of 1893 and the great 1890s recession may have more parallels with our current circumstances than the Apollo-related decades from 1950-70. The 1890s featured a double-dip recession and unemployment above 10%, as well as a political realignment that led to a stunning 1960s-style economic boom after 1899. The resulting early 20th century Maslow Window featured extraordinary ebullience, including “Panama fever” as the new canal split the continent and transformed America into a global power, “pole mania” as heroic international teams risked death to be the first to the poles, the civilization-altering Wright brothers’ first flights, and perhaps the most ebullient U.S. president ever: Theodore Roosevelt.

The trajectory of future history is not confined to a choice between the 1890-1913 Panic/recession model or the 1950-1973 Apollo example. But significantly, they both point to a golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology that’s just around the corner.

Based on the historical pattern of rhythmic, twice-per-century Maslow Windows — over the last 200 years — including the Panic/Great Recession pairs (like the Panic of 2008) that typically occur a few years before the Windows, we can expect the new international Space Age to start gaining momentum by 2015.