Albert Einstein called him “the father of modern science” for his insistence on the primacy of observation in the scientific method. But according to the Wall Street Journal (8/28/08), some others — i.e., Monsignor Melchor Sanchez de Toca of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture — claim his controversial story is “like a Mexican soap opera; it never ends.”

Indeed, in today’s world, when someone says “What goes around comes around,” they’re not usually referring to Earth’s orbit around the Sun — a major interest of Galileo’s — but they could be alluding to Galileo’s continuing, 400+ years of turmoil with the church.

Galileo’s troubles with the Roman Catholic church began in 1632 when he published his powerful defense of Copernicus’ helocentric theory based on solid telescopic evidence. Apparently, the 17th century church had already endorsed the dictum of a well-known Fox News commentator — “The spin stops here!” — because they summarily dismissed Galileo’s advocacy of a circling Earth as “absurd, false, and altogether contrary to scripture.” Plus Galileo was given an indefinite prison sentence.

Click .

However, things began to cool off in the early 18th century when the church allowed some of Galileo’s writings to be published. In 1835 it endorsed discussion of the Sun-centered model by removing all heliocentric publications from the list of banned books. More recently in 1992, after a 12 year study of the Vatican’s secret archives, Pope John Paul II publicly expressed regret at Galileo’s conviction and treatment.

As part of next year’s celebration of the first use of a telescope to study the sky (by Galileo), the Vatican received an offer from an anonymous donor to fund a statue of Galileo in the Vatican. Nuclear physicist Nicola Cabibbo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences remarked that “The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith,” (Times Online, 3/4/08).

In fact, Galileo has become not only the Inquisition’s most illustrious heretic but also a global icon of an apparent church/science conflict. This time the Catholic Church wants to be on the right side of history, including being officially open to the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrials as well as supporting the research of professional astronomers at the Vatican Observatory.

Galileo not only laid the foundation for modern science, but by being the first to use the telescope to study mountains and valleys on the Moon as well as the Sun and other planets, he pointed humanity toward its ultimate destiny in the Galaxy: space colonization. As we approach a time of accelerating global space activities — i.e., the 2015 Maslow Window — more people are coming to appreciate the monumental contributions of Galileo to the human future in space.

For example, young people fresh from a study of Galileo’s troubles with the church and infused with an exhilarating sense of humanity’s near-term potential for space colonization, sometimes react with anger as they unintentionally judge Galileo and the church by 21st Century cultural standards. This partially explains students at Rome’s La Sapienza Univ who rejected a visit by Pope Benedict XVI last January, because of his 1990 lecture that some interpreted as a defense of the Church’s conviction of Galileo.

But we can take some consolation in the fact that, unlike some others, Galileo was not burned or beheaded, but lived his life in comfort under house arrest. Let’s hope the anonymous donor comes through with the money and the Vatican can find a suitable place for a statue of “the father of modern science.”

The Big Question is what to do after 2010 when the Shuttle is retired? Many ask if it makes sense to rely on a guy like Vladimir Putin for a ride to the Space Station.

For Putin’s violent little adventure in Georgia, President Bush has sought appropriate punishment and Secretary of State Condi Rice has said “There can be no business as usual…” As a result, the President’s major initiative to increase US-Russian collaboration on nuclear energy production is at least temporarily dead in the Senate (Wall Street Journal, 8/23/08). And, although supported by US Senator Bill Nelson (FL), a waiver that would allow the US to buy launch services to ISS from Russia (required because they sell nuclear technology to Iran) must be passed ASAP (e.g., by January) by a reluctant Senate.

One result of the long-term approach used here at 21stCenturyWaves.com, is the realization that as we approach a Maslow Window (coming in 5 – 7 years), international tensions will probably increase; sadly, the last 200 years shows they always have. And in this dynamic international environment, while collaborations with potential geopolitical opponents are usually productive, becoming dependent on them for key space services is not.

But the good news is that SpaceDev of Poway, CA is here to potentially save the day. They want to stack their Dream Chaser piloted spacecraft on an Atlas V launch vehicle — a modernized descendant of the early Atlas, developed by my former company General Dynamics, that launched the first American — John Glenn — into orbit in 1962. (Incidentally, I remember little about my first day on the job in the early 1980s at the Kearney Mesa plant in San Diego, except being given a tour of the Atlas assembly facility. A life-altering experience for a total space guy like myself!)

A view of the spectacular General Dynamics Atlas assembly line in Kearney Mesa (San Diego);
Click .

SpaceDev’s Frank Taylor and Russell Howard reported recently (AIAA-2008-7837) on preliminary trade studies and analysis of this Dream Chaser/Atlas V concept for servicing missions to the Space Station and judge it to be “promising.”

The Atlas V includes a dual-engine cryogenic Centaur upper stage and 2 strap-on Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). Dream Chaser is always a piloted vehicle with 6 crew on a personnel mission and 1 pilot on a cargo mission, with 4000 to 6000 pound payload capability to ISS. Atlas V can enhance payload capability by using up to 5 SRBs. The need for rapid separation and escape during an abort after launch drives their preference for a no-fairing option (surrounding the DC). The DC/Atlas V combination would launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and could use the Shuttle Landing Facility if necessary.

Key remaining issues include achieving human-rating for the Atlas V and aerodynamic controllability of the integrated vehicle. Possible development schedules were not discussed in the AIAA paper and neither was cost, although it is likely to be considerable.

But with a little luck, for 2010, it’s potentially a Dream Chaser come true!

This is an updated list of our readers’ favorite posts, based on the number of times each post was visited during the times indicated below.

Although the State of the Wave posts are very popular, the lists below include only Daily Wavelet posts.

The timeframes of the readers’ lists below are: I) All-Time Favorites (the first daily post was published on 5/11/08), and II) Favorites over the Last 7 Days. To see readers’ favorite posts for each previous month, click HERE.

Both lists below give only the top 5 favorites in each category in order of reader preference.

Both lists are updated every other week on Friday afternoons.
All posts below are clickable and their publishing dates are given.

Updated 9/19/08

I. ALL-TIME — Readers’ Favorites

1) 10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space — 6/22/08
2) How Great Explorations Really Work — 7/10/08
3) Is Obama the Next One? — 5/15/08
4) NASA’s Challenging Future..! — 8/1/08
5) Gallup Polls Support Maslow Window Forecasts — 6/20/08

II. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) 10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space — 6/22/08
2) NASA’s Challenging Future..! — 8/1/08
3) Forecasting the Next 20 Years in Space — 9/14/08
4) Gallup Polls Support Maslow Window Forecasts — 6/20/08
5) Why the World is Not Going to End — 8/28/08

As the old saying goes, “The first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics.” Well, at least one speaker at the AIAA Space 2008 Conference in San Diego last week thinks it shouldn’t.

Arthur Hingerty (AIAA 2008-7718), president of the MagLifter Research Consortium in Denver thinks Aeronautics should be dropped and NASA should refocus its efforts on Exploration of the solar system.

This is consistent with expectations here at 21stCenturyWaves.com because the world has changed since 1958 when NASA was formed. Two key things driving NASA’s evolution are: 1) NASA’s plans to establish bases on the Moon and later Mars, and 2) serious international interests in human spaceflight beyond LEO, including lunar bases.

A NASA JSC Lunar base concept by John Frassanito & Associates. Click .

The pointless, age-old squabble over using human crews vs. robotic systems is easily resolved by recognizing that both are required to “…advance and aid the establishment of human settlements on our Solar System’s planetary bodies…,” which Hingerty wisely proposes should be the “central purpose” of the new agency.

Hingerty believes that without long-term space exploration providing a clearly defined goal, future Apollo-style programs could be subject to Cold War-like influences and “once the geopolitical influence is removed or changed the human spaceflight program will lose direction…”

In fact, “geopolitical influences” are a prominent feature of every Maslow Window of the last 200 years and can indeed be expected to affect future human space exploration programs, including those likely to start in the next 5 – 7 years.

This is not to discourage Hingerty’s powerful idea, because NASA needs exploration as its central purpose. However, it is to say that geopolitical influences will inevitably interfere with major space programs, and the best counter to declining public support — when it occurs near 2025, depending on wildcards — is to strive for a measure of self-sufficiency at Moon bases or Mars ouposts at the earliest possible opportunity.

NASA would become NSEA: the “National Space Exploration Administration!”

Bruce’s presentation last Thursday to the AIAA Space 2008 Conference in San Diego is now online here.

“Forecasting the Next 20 Years in Space: The New Race to Space,” has 3 purposes: 1) to briefly introduce the macroeconomic and historical data of the last 200 years for Great Explorations, Macro-Engineering Projects, and major wars, and to explain how they provide a framework for 21st Century space and technology forecasts, 2) to explore the basic forecasts themselves for the next 20 years and summarize global events and trends supporting them, and 3) to feature space policy-related implications of the forecasts. The bottomline is that long waves in the economy provide a framework in which major exploring, impressive building, and tragic warrior behavior are especially enabled roughly every 56 years.

The 56 year energy cycle (discovered by Stewart, 1989) provides a remarkable indicator of macroeconomic activity; the energy peaks (e.g., in 1969) correspond directly to peaks in major decade-long economic booms. Indeed, the energy cycle and the better-known Kondratieff waves are directly correlated. And Alexander (2002) has shown that the popular Strauss and Howe (1991) generational cycles are also correlated with (and apparently influenced by) K Waves.

Historical data from the last 200 years clearly show that Great Explorations, massive MEPs, and major wars, cluster near the 56 year energy cycle peaks in 1801, 1857, 1913, and 1969 (and soon 2025). (See the presentation charts and The Articles.)

The close association of Great Explorations, MEPs, and major wars with the 56 year energy/economics cycle suggests the following “Maslow Window” model: Rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms create widespread affluence. As societal “Maslow pressures” are reduced, many people ascend the Maslow Heirarchy into an affluence-induced ebullient state and momentarily find exploring and building to be almost irresistible. While others also reach ebullience — but do not ascend the Maslow Heirarchy — and tragically trigger major wars. This unusual confluence of affluence and ebullience creates what we call a “Maslow Window” — a spectacular decade that rapidly declines just after the energy peak. The impressive economic, political, strategic, and scientific parallels between Lewis and Clark and Apollo are, for example, easily explained by this model, as are many other such parallels over the last 200 years.

Projecting the last 200 years into the next 20 suggests that the decade from 2015 to 2025 will be the analog — in the economy, technology, exploration, politics — of the 1960s, complete with a Camelot-style zeitgeist.

Many signs of the times (documented in this weblog) — most good and some bad — support the idea that society is approaching the 2015 Maslow Window, including: the greatest global economic boom ever (July, 2007; momentarily postponed by our current turmoil), energetic international space programs, return of Cold War-like tensions in Europe, birth of the space tourism industry, a global explosion of non-space MEPs (e.g., the $ 5 B Panama Canal expansion), the emergent exploration-loving Millennial generation, and many others.

Policy-related implications of this Maslow Window model abound and include: 1) public ebullience and support for major Maslow programs (e.g., manned Mars) will fade abruptly near the next 56 year energy peak (2025), 2) timing of the expected 2020s major war is a major wildcard, 3) planned human Moon and Mars initiatives should strive for self-sufficiency in space so at least some deep space (i.e., beyond LEO/GEO) operations can continue after Maslow Window closure near 2025, 4) current U.S. Moon base plans and Maslow Window timing appear to preclude American spaceflight to Mars during this Window (next Window opens in 2071), 5) the next rapidly approaching Maslow Window (opening in 2013-15) requires action now, not paralysis by analysis, … and many others.

I. Bruce’s AIAA presentation, “Forecasting the Next 20 Years in Space: The New Race to Space,” is now available HERE. It was presented last Thursday at the AIAA Space 2008 Conference in San Diego, CA. See also the accompanying post.

II. 21stCenturyWaves.com is again happily participating in the Carnival of Space, this week hosted by OrbitalHub. If you’d like to sample a number of excellent space-related weblogs, please click HERE.

The Carnival is run by Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today.

At least Houston hopes it is! No, it’s not a rebellion of the flight controllers. The New York Times (9/7/08) reports it’s just a friendly game of interplanetary chess between Station astronauts and ground crews.

American astronaut Greg Chamitoff, who arrived recently with the astronauts who installed the Japanese Experiment Module and is an emissary of the Florida Chess Association, brought his own plastic chess set, complete with velcro on the pieces to combat zero-g!

NASA regards this whole thing as a good move. “This competition with the crew has been well-received. Part of it may be the competitive nature of our flight controllers. Who wouldn’t want to beat an astronaut, someone with the right stuff,” according to a controller on the NASA web site.

Dr. Chamitoff is apparently more than a match for mission control. After winning his first game, he is now engaged in 6 matches running concurrently with the ground. You can track his success here.

True space colonization involves living, working, and playing in space. Space chess shows that life there, even now, includes important times for recreation just like it does here on Earth.

However Astronaut Chamitoff returns to Earth in November, not long before Christmas. And if his ground controller friends and he are caught publicly discussing their chess victories, there may be a problem…because some people can’t stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.

(Thanks to Nicholas Johnson for the chess puns.)

This is an updated list of our readers’ favorite posts, based on the number of times each post was visited during the times indicated below.

Although the State of the Wave posts are very popular, the lists below include only Daily Wavelet posts.

The timeframes of the readers’ lists below are: I) All-Time Favorites (the first daily post was published on 5/11/08), and II) Favorites over the Last 7 Days. To see readers’ favorite posts for each previous month, click HERE.

Both lists below give only the top 5 favorites in each category in order of reader preference.

Both lists are updated every other week on Friday afternoons.
All posts below are clickable and their publishing dates are given.

Updated 9/5/08

I. ALL-TIME — Readers’ Favorites

1) 10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space — 6/22/08
2) How Great Explorations Really Work — 7/10/08
3) Is Obama the Next One? — 5/15/08
4) The Way MEPs Really Work — 6/16/08
5) McCain and the Republican Panic — 6/6/08

II. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) How Great Explorations Really Work — 7/10/08
2) Mars vs. the Moon – A Different Angle — 6/28/08
3) Panama Canal Expansion Extends to New Orleans — 6/30/08
4) 10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space — 6/22/08
5) The God Particle and 21st Century Waves — 6/12/08

I. Bruce speaks next week at the AIAA Space 2008 Conference at the San Diego Convention Center in America’s Finest City. Bruce’s topic is, “Forecasting the Next 20 Years in Space: The New Race to Space,” and much of the talk comes from this weblog. The Conference theme is “Future Space: National Priorities, Criticial Decisions,” and will feature a variety of speakers including NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, David McGlade – Intelsat CEO, and Gen. Kevin Chilton – Commander US Strategic Command. There will also be a public lecture on the Phoenix Mars mission by the University of Arizona’a Peter Smith. I expect to be erupting with new insights about 21st Century Waves after mingling with this fun crew!

II. 21stCenturyWaves.com is again happily participating in the Carnival of Space (#69), this week hosted by Free Space, where Irene Klotz presents the Universe from A to Z. If you’d like to sample a number of excellent space-related weblogs, please click HERE.

The Carnival is run by Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today.

This is a list of our readers’ favorite posts for August, 2008, based on the number of times each post was visited during August.

For current lists of readers’ favorite posts for all previous months please click HERE.
For updated lists of readers’ favorite posts for the last 7 days and for all-time, please click HERE.

Although the bi-weekly State of the Wave posts are very popular, the lists below include only Daily Wavelet posts.

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

AUGUST, 2008 — Readers’ Favorites

1) How Great Explorations Really Work — 7/10/08
2) NASA’s Challenging Future..! — 8/1/08
3) 10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space — 6/22/08
4) Major Wars Threaten Space Initiatives — 7/12/08
5) 10 Lessons Lewis & Clark Teach Us About the Human Future in Space — 8/17/08