A key question is: Given the current financial panic, is it likely the United States will play a leadership role in space colonization and exploration between 2015 and 2025? The question can be split into two more fundamental ones: 1) will the U.S. remain a global superpower in the normal sense of the word, and 2) will the U.S. aggressively pursue large-scale, unprecedented space activities of the type expected during the next Maslow Window?

Is America’s global leadership declining? Click .

Doubters abound regarding the U.S.’s future superpower status. For example, Germany’s finance minister, Russia’s prime minister, and Iran’s president have predicted U.S. “hegemony” is ending. And the New York Times, Der Spiegel, and Guardian columnist John Gray, all foresee a diminished America.

In this blog, I’ve featured rational arguments that suggest the U.S.’ superpower status will be uninterrupted, because:
1) The U.S. is not only the weathliest and most powerful country now, but in all of history; see Professor Madden.
2) The U.S. has weathered major challenges for over 200 years and continued to flourish; see Lewis & Clark.
3) The analog between Britain’s decline and the U.S. is very weak; see Zakaria.
4) America’s bright future is enhanced by its world-class universities and robust demographics; see Zakaria.

Bret Stephens, in the Wall Street Journal (10/14/08) asserts that “America will remain the Superpower,” because — referring to America’s opponents and critics — “When the tide laps at Gulliver’s waistline, it usually means the Lilliputians are already 10 feet under.” This is seen in a variety of economic stressors where the U.S. is favored vs. other countries, including inflation, ability to finance a bailout, government debt to GDP ratio, amount of foreign direct investment, and others.

The New York Times (10/12/08, David Leonhardt) anonymously quotes a senior Chinese economist who says that people in his home country do not doubt America’s prospects, “They know its ability to turn around problems is really unmatched, historically.”

Stephens concludes that no matter who wins the upcoming presidential election, “the United States will eventually regain its economic footing and maintain its place” as the Superpower.

In space, will the U.S. be a Gulliver or a Lilliputian? Click ?

Assuming the U.S. remains the Superpower, will the financial panic reduce the U.S. — in the space arena — to a Lilliputian or will it remain a Gulliver? Several points are relevant:

1) George Friedman (Stratfor, 10/16/08) notes that the current panic is less like a systemic collapse (i.e., the Great Depression with 50% GDP decline over 3 years) and more like an “inflection point” related to business cycles. For example, in the Savings and Loan crisis of 1989 government bailout was 6.5% of GDP, while currently government intervention is about 5%. Friedman concludes that a recession is coming but it “would not break the framework of the postwar economy.”

2) The timing of the current panic relative to the anticipated opening of the next Maslow Window (2015) is a concern. For example, economists believe the credit crunch could last “well into 2009,” (San Diego Union-Tribune, Dean Calbreath, 10/19/08). Until credit problems are resolved, “the current recession could be much deeper and longer than otherwise.” A worst-case scenario would be the decade-long Great Depression. This suggests the next Maslow Window could start near 2018, about 3 years “late”. On the other hand, two major 19th Century panics began within a decade of their Maslow Windows and did not delay their openings or diminish in the least their spectacular Great Explorations and MEPs. I’ve noted before that two factors — renewed Cold War-like tensions, and strong international interest in Moon bases — suggest the Maslow Window might open earlier than 2015. These geopolitical effects might even counter an unusually long recession, similar to how the war economy of W.W. II ended the Great Depression.

3) There was no financial panic in 1949, one decade before the onset of the Apollo Maslow Window, which featured the Cold War’s race to space and footprints on the Moon in 1969. Does that imply that the current panic (7 years before the 2015 Window) will interfere with realistic prospects for international space spectaculars between 2015 and 2025? It appears that the 1949 NON-panic was due to the post-war boom (for which the Boomer generation is named!) and financial reforms passed during the Great Depression. I concluded earlier that a good analog for our current situation is the Panic of 1893 which lasted through that decade but ultimately gave birth to the most spectacular Maslow Window of the last 200 years (until Apollo).

However, there is still considerable uncertainty about how our current panic will end. Arthur Laffer (Wall Street Journal, 10/27/08) believes that “this administration and Congress will be remembered like Herbert Hoover,” and that “the age of prosperity is over” because even more government bailouts are in our future. And The Economist (10/16/08) concurs: “Even if it staves off disaster, the bail-out will cause huge problems. It creates moral hazard: such a visible safety net encourages risky behavior. it may also politicize lending.”

On the other hand, it’s possible that international events will play a stimulating role. We may unify globally and have a Grand Alliance for Space, or someone might decide that a Sputnik-style surprise conveys irresistible geopolitical advantages. Either way it will get our attention.

Southern New Mexico has to be in the running for the global title of Most Ebullience per Capita, even rivaling Panama. Spaceport America (near Las Cruces) — the world’s first commercial spaceport and host last week of a major conference on commercial spaceflight — is taking off!

Spaceport America may open in 2010. Click .

Executive Director Steve Landeene says, “We’re in the very early stage of creating a new kind of air transport system. Space tourism is the first phase, along with the commercial launching of satellites and spacecraft that can carry cargo and even astronauts to the international space station and maybe later the moon,” (Washington Post, 5/10/08)

Wow — A vision for launching astronauts to ISS, and maybe later the Moon!! Not bad for a site initially eyed by Stanford University and NASA in the early 1990s as a passive, reusable space capsule landing site, and more recently, that survived the exciting prospects of single stage-to-orbit operations at the “Southwest Regional Spaceport” only to see it fade away in 2001 with the cancellation of VentureStar.

Of course it helps to have Richard Branson agree to make New Mexico the world headquarters of Virgin Galactic as well as the primary tenant of Spaceport America, explained Landeene at San Diego’s AIAA Space 08 Conference in September. And other campanies such as UP Aerospace and Lockheed Martin also plan future launches from the $ 225 million Spaceport.

The type of early ebullience characteristic of the runup to the next Maslow Window is exemplified by serious futuristic talk about “point-to-point” intercontinental transport; where rocket-powered vehicles move cargo or passengers between spaceports much faster than is possible now. In a recent interview in Space News (10/20/08) Landeene confirms that, “Even just a few months ago people were trying to keep this idea low profile…But I do believe we’re going to see that kind of transportation…I don’t hear any naysayers.”

Spaceport America’s recent success includes passage of a sales tax in support of the Spaceport in 2 nearby counties. A third county will vote in November and then a Spaceport Tax District must be formed to administer the revenue by the end of 2008. Assuming their pending Environmental Impact Statement is approved and the FAA grants a Spaceport Operators License, they’ll become the first commercial portal to the cosmos in late 2010!

And, indeed the social scientists think so too. As we approach the spectacular 2015 Maslow Window — a decade that economic and other indicators over the last 200 years suggest will be the analog of the 1960s, including a Camelot-like zeitgeist — a new academic social science journal is bursting over the horizon. “The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics, and Culture.” It’s published by Routledge and edited by Jeremy Varon, Michael Foley, and John McMillian.

The 1960s was the time of humanity’s greatest explorative event: the first man on the Moon. It was and is the greatest because it was the first time humans left Earth and set foot on another world. The Sixties was also the first time in the last 200 years that a Great Exploration (i.e., Apollo to the Moon) was thoroughly integrated with the predominant macro-engineering project (i.e., the Apollo program infrastructure) of its time. For example, the Great Explorations of 1909-11 (the polar expeditions) — which many decades later were judged to be among the top 100 greatest events in all human history — were unrelated to their great contemporary MEP: the Panama Canal — except maybe in their joint sharing of a feeling of almost global ebullience.

The momentous Saturn V symbolized the first time a Great Exploration was thoroughly joined with an MEP in the last 200 years. Click .

The Apollo Moon program was fundamentally triggered by an unparalleled economic boom accompanied by the surprise 1957 launch of Sputnik and the intense confrontations of the Cold War. However in the typical pattern of Maslow Windows during the last 200 years, Apollo was effectively terminated by declining 1960s ebullience and affluence due to the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, Apollo remains a major international symbol of the Sixties.

Although, in their Editorial announcing the new Sixties journal, the editors somehow forgot to mention the most compelling technological and geopolitical theme of the Sixties — the race to space — maybe in time they will rediscover it, because they are on the right track. For example, they sense that the 1960′s produced an ebullience “that continues to initrigue, inspire, confound, amuse, tempt, repel, and capture us.”

In the Sixties, the editors recognize that “all this energy — by parts dignified, militant, uptopian, and delusional — was of great consequence…No recent decade has been so powerfully transformative in much of the world as have the Sixties.”

The Sixties decade “has become plainly iconic.” It continues to “not only define us but remains urgently with us.” But the editors display frustration with their lack of understanding of what created the Sixties’ “transformative longing”: “As time passes, and periodic predictions that a given society or the world is poised for a similar experience prove false, the very fact that ‘the Sixties’ happened at all seems increasingly remarkable.”

We can help them with this one. The last 200 years show that rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms create climates of affluence-induced ebullience (known as Maslow Windows) that are momentarily manifested by Great Explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), massive MEPs (e.g., Panama Canal), and a utopian feeling of “transformative longing” (e.g., Apollo). The record shows that exceptional ebullience does not propel all people to elevated levels in Maslow’s heirarchy. Tragically, some trigger major wars.

The Sixties editors prefer to consider the “long Sixties” from 1954 to 1975. According to the 56 year energy/economic cycle, the year 2008 corresponds roughly to (2008 – 56) 1952. So it’s not surprising that academics have renewed interest now in the Sixties. Long-term trends — over the last 200 years — indicate the “new 1960s” will begin in only 5 to 7 years..

The current economic crisis that caused so much pain and anxiety as it intensified to a credit meltdown about a month ago, supports Maslow Window forecasts in this weblog and elsewhere. Specifically, the long wave timing and character of the crisis is supportive of the Long Wave/Maslow Window (LW/MW) forecast model first published in Cordell (1996), and more recently in Cordell (2006), and expanded in this weblog. The LW/MW model is summarized HERE.

“We are now in the midst of a major financial panic,” according to author John Steele Gordon in the Wall Street Journal (10/10/08). But there have been several over the last 200 years; Gordon counts 9, including this one.

21stCenturyWaves.com has highlighted a class of panics that follow Maslow Windows; they appear 16 to 18 years after their 56 year energy cycle peaks (peaks are in 1801, 1857, 1913, 1969, 2025). This includes the Panic of 1873, the Great Depression beginning in 1929, and the Crash of 1987 (Black Monday). Gordon asserts that the “ordinary recession” of 1929 degenerated into the disaster known as the Great Depression because the Federal Reserve was ineffective; he believes that it’s reorganization in 1934 kept the Crash of 1987 from having any “lasting effect on the economy.”

Gordon’s mention of the 1819 panic completes the pattern:
Each Maslow Window of the last 200 years is followed by a panic 16-18 years after its energy cycle peak. This supports the LW/MW model by demonstrating that major economic events — in this case, post-Maslow Window panics — of the last 200 years are closely associated in time with long-term fluctuations in the economy.

21stCenturyWaves.com has also characterized a class of panics that predate Maslow Windows by about a decade. For example, the Panic of 1837 preceeded the opening of the mid-19th Century Livingstone Maslow Window (of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” fame) by 10 years and was a time of very high unemployment when 40% of the country’s banks failed. Ironically, about a month ago I was in the process of writing a new post on the Panic of 1893 and its similarities to today — and trying to develop the courage to forecast a similar crisis today (!) — when the credit meltdown occurred. The Panic of 1893 caused estimated unemployment over 10% for 5+ years. It lasted 18 months but was followed by another recession that lasted until 1897. The combination of GDP declines of several % coupled with population growth meant that GDP per capita didn’t recover to 1892 levels until 1899.

Although the Panic of 1893 began about 10 years before the opening of the 1903 Adm. Peary Maslow Window, the 1903-1913 decade featured exceptional ebullience, including the daring, world-famous races to both N. and S. poles, and construction of the greatest MEP of the last 200 years (until Apollo): the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal — the greatest macro-engineering project (until Apollo) of the last 200 years — was constructed during the Peary Maslow Window immediately following the Panic of 1893. Click .

One loose end is the Panic of 1949; according to the pattern, the mid-20th Century Apollo Maslow Window began in 1959 and 10 years earlier we should expect a panic. Of course, happily it didn’t occur. Gordon attributes this to the Fed reorganization of 1934 and the post-W.W. II boom. An important lesson is that long-wave timeframes suggest when certain types of events are likely to occur, not when they must occur. Through knowledge of these long-term patterns, we are capable of avoiding disasters.

But what of the future? Gordon links our current crisis to the birth of huge interstate banks in the 1990s, and “Congress’ attempt to force banks to make home loans to people who had limited creditworthiness…” This “created another crisis in the banking system that is now playing out.” Today the New York Times (page 1) profiles Henry Cisneros, who was President Clinton’s top housing official in the mid-1990s, and one of the inadvertant early architects of the current panic.

The Panic of 2008 began about 7 years before the opening of the next scheduled Maslow Window (near 2015). Although 2008 is roughly the expected timeframe for a panic, long-term trends over the last 200 years suggest it arrived a little late, and could have started in 2005 (about one decade before 2015). Or, this may signal the 2015 Maslow Window itself may open a little late.

It’s likely the Panic of 2008 — and the upcoming 2015 Maslow Window — will have more in common with the pre-Maslow Window panics of 1837 and 1893, than it will with the Great Depression of 1929 — a post-Maslow Window panic. Especially if our political leaders can bring themselves to enact a unified, well-capitalized, appropriately regulated banking system.

Consider the technological wonders of the mid-19th Century Maslow Window — Suez Canal, Great Eastern ship, etc. — and those of the early 20th Century Window — Panama Canal, the Titanic, etc. — and their riveting equatorial Africa and polar region Great Explorations, respectively. How scintillatingly unparalleled for their day, despite their pre-Window panics.

More on what the current panic suggests about our future in an upcoming post.

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) Favorites over the Last 7 Days, and II) All-Time Favorites (the first daily post was published on 5/11/08).

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 10/17/08

I. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) Major Wars Threaten Future Space Initiatives — 7/12/08
2) “Warp 10, Scotty!” — 10/11/08
3) 10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space — 6/22/08
4) The New Cuban Space Center and Vladimir Bonaparte — 10/08/08
5) How Great Explorations Really Work — 7/10/08

II. 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) Taikonaut to Take a Walk — 6/13/08
4) NASA’s Challenging Future..! — 8/1/08
5) The Way MEPs Really Work — 6/16/08

Einstein once said that God doesn’t play dice with the Universe, but Einstein had little to say about anyone playing golf on the Moon. However, Aristotle insisted that the highest human goal is “happiness,” which many associate with golf, maybe even in space. And this brings us to legendary Apollo astronaut Alan B. Shepard. (See New York Times, October 13, 2008.)

Alan Shepard on the Moon in 1971; Click .

Admiral Shepard’s unparalleled national hero credentials were secure in 1961 when he became the first American in space. He’d been chosen from the world’s best test pilots as one of NASA’s original 7 astronauts. But after being kept out of the space flight action through much of the 1960s because of an inner ear ailment (solved by surgery), he wanted to walk on the Moon.

Shepard luckily missed Apollo 13 — the mission that Tom Hanks made even more famous — because he needed more training. His crew wound up on the Apollo 14 trip to Fra Mauro, a spectacular valley about 360 km south of Copernicus crater that’s littered with ancient secrets.

Just before leaving the Moon, Shepard casually produced a 6 iron and a few golf balls and proceeded to become the first human to play golf on the Moon. He liked the idea because in 1/6 g (and no air), the balls will travel more than 6 times farther than on Earth. You can relive the historic moment…

To see Al Shepard play the first golf shot on the Moon, click HERE.

Shepard enjoyed golf, on any world. Towards the end of his life he spent most of his time at his home in Pebble Beach, CA, a golfer’s paradise. He also played pro-ams such as the Bob Hope Classic in Palm Springs, where I accidentally ran into him in the late 1980s. He lamented that “the wheels had come off” his game, but of course it didn’t matter.

Astronaut Shepard was ahead of his time. True space colonization will require us to live, work, and play during our lengthy times in space, and Shepard — in an ebullient lunar moment — wanted to teach us that. Although some considered his golf shots to be unprofessional during a Moon mission, they were actually among the most profoundly human moments of the 20th Century.

This is a recent sample of the intriguing ways 21stCenturyWaves.com is being portrayed on the web. A more complete list will be posted routinely in the future. Apologies if I couldn’t mention you this time.

Thanks to everyone who’s visited 21stCenturyWaves.com.

Carnival of Space no. 74: the Orion Arm, Vladimir Bonaparte and Watermelon Planet edition
“21st Century Waves contributed a geopolitical view of space with the post, “The New Cuban Space Center and Vladimir Bonaparte,” which I nominate for best blog post title of the week.” Thanks to Wayne Hall for featuring the Vladimir Bonaparte post.

Scott’s: Latest News Stories
Thanks to Scott S in Atlanta for featuring the post: The New Cuban Space Center and Vladimir Bonaparte

HobbySpace.com
Briefs: Dream Chaser on Atlas V; Soyuz durability
Thanks to Clark S. Lindsey (“TopSpacer”) for including my post:
For 2010 — A Dream Chaser Come True?

Res Communis – The University of Mississippi School of Law
Library: A Round-up of Reading
Thanks to P. J. Blount for posting my AIAA Space 2008 Conference presentation given recently in San Diego.

La Orilla Cosmica
This is a wonderful website and I appreciate their comments. Their portrayal of my “200 Years” figure is definitely eye-catching and it’s a great idea! I’m redoing the plot myself and will soon feature it similarly on 21stCenturyWaves.com
Thanks Gouki!

Final Frontier
Great website! Danke to Matthias Meier for featuring my site on his and generating all the interesting comments.

Will any future Captain Kirk ever say that for real?

In any case, growing excitement over a far-future interstellar propulsion system can be taken as evidence for early ebullience … a key characteristic of the approach to the next Maslow Window.

The September issue (Vol. 61, No. 9) of the prestigious Journal of the British Interplanetary Society features six articles on how we may someday be able to travel to the stars using a faster-than-light (FTL) warp drive.

The secret to the stars may be the Alcubierre warp drive.
Click .

Although this may sound impossible now — and indeed our Universe may prohibit it — the first serious scientific speculation about warp drive was published in 1994 by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. His solution to the Einstein field equations features a “bubble” of highly curved space-time powered by a local expansion of space-time at the bubble’s rear and a corresponding contraction in front. It’s especially nice because while the bubble is executing FTL speeds, the spacecraft — comfortably ensconced inside the bubble — remains at rest with respect to normal space-time and thus doesn’t fuss with annoying time dilations or relativistic mass increases. Old fashioned wormholes need not apply in this future scenario.

But for now, the Alcubierre drive remains “scientific speculation” because of 19 unsolved physical problems with the concept, according to BIS Warp Drive Symposium Chair K.F. Long. For example, it’s not known yet how to disturb space-time to produce the desired “bubble” or how to obtain the large amounts of negative energy needed to maintain it. Plus, the 2nd Law of Thermo may prohibit negative energy anyway.

But assuming it’s possible, how long do aspiring galactic explorers have to wait? Jeremy Gardiner offers an estimate based on an interesting historical analogy with manned spaceflight to the Moon. Although Galileo first observed the Moon’s mountains and valleys in 1610, the first fictional account of human Moon travel was in 1657 by Cyrano de Bergerac. That was even before Newton published the rules (e.g., gravity) about how to get there in 1687. Robert Goddard discussed the theory of rockets in 1919 and then demonstrated it for liquid propellants in 1926. After being refined by the Germans (V-2), the Russians, and the Americans, the first manned landing occurred in 1969 — slightly over 300 years after Cyrano’s fictional winged spacecraft with staged rockets!

The Warp Drive timeline includes Einstein’s Special and General Theory in 1905 and 1915, John W. Cambell’s 1930 novel that first described warp drive (and later movies and TV shows like Star Trek), and the 1994 Alcubierre warp paper. Thus Gardiner suggests a real warp drive might be available around 2180!

Mark your calendars…

The last 200 years teach us that approximately every 56 years great explorations like Lewis and Clark splash into history along with stunning macro-engineering projects (MEPs) like the Suez Canal. Tragically, they are usually followed shortly by a major war like World War I.

Most of this twice-per-century action occurs in the decade just before a peak in the well-documented 56 year energy cycle. These Maslow Windows are invariably the time of exceptional economic booms that create widespread affluence and elevate society to higher realms of Maslow’s Heirarchy. Thus many people momentarily find great explorations and MEPs not only tolerable, but almost irresistible.

Our time is coming. We’re rapidly approaching the opening of the next Maslow Window near 2015, and can expect the usual unfortunate escalation of international tensions of the type we saw in the 1950s during the Cold War.

Unfortunately the current parallel with the 1950s is striking. The Wall Street Journal (8/12/08) suggests that Russian tanks in Georgia revealed “Vladimir Putin’s Napoleonic ambitions”: to dominate Eurasia again. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserted that “Georgia can be rebuilt. Russia’s reputation is going to take a while, if ever,” (CBS TV, 8/17/08). Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical analyst with Stratfor, which Barron’s once referred to as “the shadow CIA,” suggests that, “Russia is attempting to reforge its Cold War-era influence…”

One attractive Russian target is Cuba. Since space centers are the rage around the globe these days, Russia’s offered to build them one (Reuters, 9/17/08). Of course this would just involve little things like joint use of “space equipment…and space communications systems.” If this doesn’t remind you of the Cuban missile crisis (1962) during the early Apollo Maslow Window when WW III almost began, you need to Google it. For their part, the Russians openly acknowledge that “they want to renew Cuban ties that were neglected after the Soviet Union’s collapse.”

One of the greatest sources of joy to the American public, as revealed by opinion polls over the decades, is the prospect of true international cooperation in space, especially with the Russians. And now word comes from the recent International Astronautical Congress in Glascow, Scotland that not only the Russians, but the Chinese want to go to Mars… with the U.S.!!

Such a sparkling joint great exploration concept brings to mind the phrase, “Where do I sign?” But students of long-term trends in geopolitics and history must reluctantly advise caution.

Once upon a time, about one energy cycle ago in the 1950s, there was the International Geophysical Year (IGY), an exhuberant time of global scientific devouring of Earth’s atmospheric and space environment. In 1954 the International Council of Scientific Unions announced plans for artificial satellites to be launched during the IGY, and in July, 1955 the U.S. confirmed its intention to launch one for the IGY. Almost immediately, according to Professor Asif Siddiqi, the Soviets began a secret, crash program to beat the Americans and launch the first satellite.

The shocking result — at least to the U.S. — was the Soviet launch of Sputnik in October, 1957; an event that ignited the 1st race to space and culminated in Neil Armstrong’s footsteps on the Moon in 1969.

What will ignite the next race to space? One possible, but chilling response comes from Stratfor’s Zeihan, “It’s a fairly straightforward exercise to predict where Russian activity will reach its deepest. One only needs to revisit Cold War history.”

Bruce is Available for Public Speaking—For Bruce’s Bio Click HERE.

I’m pleased to say that I get a significant number of requests to do public speaking on future- and space-related topics and I do as many as possible.

I love doing it, but have to balance public speaking with my other professional and personal activities. I am usually able to do a few engagements per month depending on how far they are from Southern California.

Over the years I’ve done hundreds of public talks and presentations of virtually every type: from after dinner keynotes, to large groups (500+), to small seminars, etc.
My talks have been to almost every type of group imaginable including universities, clubs, corporations, schools, professional organizations, government agencies, churches, etc., across the U.S. and internationally.

I’ve enjoyed sharing realistic visions of our future with them all!

Speaking Topics Focus on 3 Themes

I enjoy giving talks on the human future similar to the three listed below. Actually the talks below have major interfaces and differ mostly in their emphasis; i.e., the emphasis in I is on space colonization, in II it’s a broad, strategic look at the future, and in III it’s on worldviews.

These talks are unique in their approach — all are based on macroeconomic and historical trends over the last 200 years. This provides an unusually powerful perspective.

We always customize the topic mix and level to your group.

I. The Human Future in Space
Prospects for near-term, international exploration and colonization of the Moon and Mars, including their importance for science, technology, peace, and prosperity.

II. 21st Century Waves: Scientific Forecasts for the Next 20 Years
Long-term trends – over the last 200 years – point to specific forecasts of technology, economic, exploration, and military watersheds as a framework for strategic thinking, both professional and personal.

III. The Spiritual Impact of Space Exploration
How traditional concepts of consciousness, human origins and destiny, and God, are being impacted by human expansion into the Cosmos.

Speaking Arrangements

If your group is outside Southern California, I may need travel expenses. Also, my fee is flexible depending on the type of group. Please email me if you have any questions.
If you’d like to arrange a speaking engagement, please contact me at:
Bruce@21stCenturyWaves.com