Every other Friday the State of the Wave summarizes specific progress toward the opening of the 2015 Maslow Window and movement toward real, near-term space colonization. The focus is on events and trends from around the world of long-range significance, especially in the context of the 10 Wave Guides.

Space-related highlights from the last 2+ weeks feature dynamic international activity, growing public interest in space-related topics, and both the economy and NASA limping along as we approach the 2013-2015 Maslow Window. Both are expected to fully recover soon.

For example, China announced plans to make it’s space technology industry world-class by 2015. Doubling the number of space technology centers around the country will beef up its commercial satellite and launch businesses and support its growing manned space program.

The importance of the recent multinational lunar exploration agreement (International Lunar Network; ILN) between the U.S. and 8 other countries (India, Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea) cannot be overstated. Clearly we’re forming the international teams that NASA will share unmanned and probably manned exploration of the Moon with. With proper maintenance the ISS could probably continue ops for decades, and as of last month, the International Partners are now openly contemplating ISS operations beyond 2015. Although China is not on either team (ILN or ISS), that could change further downstream.

Exciting rumors are circulating and building a lot of suspense about a new discovery by the Phoenix Mars Lander relating to the habitability of Mars. That announcement may come tomorrow. Equally exciting for NASA but also disturbing, Apollo Moonwalker Ed Mitchell publicly reiterated his “inside” information that UFOs are real and the U.S. government has been aware of space aliens for several decades. He appeared recently on Larry King Live. Both examples suggest public interest in space-related topics continues to grow as we approach the next Maslow Window.

The economic triple threat — inflation, slow growth, troubled credit markets — continues to plague the financial system, although several Washington politicians have talked recently about ways to increase oil supplies. Long term, we think the odds are very good for a return to a strong global economic boom of the type that was interrupted in summer, 2007. More on that soon. Despite the above accomplishments, NASA is pictured by some as “limping along” because it is not yet “tied to an overriding national priority.”

No surprise. This is what we’d expect for a NASA still 5 – 7 years from its next Maslow Window.

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