Like virtually all other presidents in U.S. history, President Obama ultimately wants a second term; and to get that, he needs to succeed in his first. So the question becomes: Can space contribute to the success of Obama’s first term?

Does President Obama need space to advance his economic and foreign policy objectives? Click .

In January I suggested that at least in 2009, space would not be a major focus for Obama. But in a recent op-ed piece in Space News (4/6/09), retired Air Force major general James B. Armor takes a longer view and boldly asserts that “Space is an important ingredient toward addressing every administration agenda and national goal.” He convincingly cites several arenas — including fixing the economy, buttressing national security, education reform, energy independence — that illustrate his point.

I will elaborate on General Armor’s discussion and inject, where appropriate, the lessons of macroeconomic data and historical trends over the last 200 years.

1) Fixing the Economy: Gen. Armor is right that investing in high-tech jobs in space-related industries would have a higher pay-off than many other alternatives. However, the global recession requires Obama to first deal with the issue of confidence in the economy.

As a Keynesian, Obama’s solution includes multi-trillion US$ stimulus/bailout packages, government control of large industries (e.g., auto), and record high deficits. In the language of Keynes, Obama must reverse the current negative “animal spirits” that afflict actors in the economy. Instead of Obama’s hoped-for outcome, some express doubts; for example the Brookings Institution, where “William Gale and Alan Auerbach share increasing public concerns about the deficit…as bad as the $1.7 trillion deficit looks for this year, the medium term and long-term numbers are of much greater concern. Our fiscal house of cards has dire implications for the American economy.”

Unusually intense Keynesian-style animal spirits — called “ebullience” — is a hallmark of twice-per-century Maslow Windows over the last 200 years, including the 1960s Apollo decade and the early 20th Century Peary/Panama Window. However, the lesson of the last 200 years seems to be that ebullience is a result (not a cause) of major economic booms. Akerlof and Shiller (2009) see parallels between now and the panic/recession of the 1890s, but they do not mention the most ebullient decade of the last 200 years — the Peary/Panama Maslow Window — which followed immediately. For those who see current parallels with the 1930s Great Depression, the current long wave trend is up toward the 2015 Maslow Window, as opposed to down during the 1930s, which should help Obama’s chances to ameliorate the crisis.

If Obama succeeds and receives a second term, he will be president during the major economic boom that is expected to open the 2015 Maslow Window, based on the last 200 years of economic and historical trends. If so, he will follow in the monumental footsteps of Presidents John Kennedy, Theodore Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson as he initiates the unprecedented great explorations and macro-engineering projects of this time.

Referring to the Great Depression, Akerloff and Shiller (2009) note that, “Confidence — and the economy itself — was not restored until World War II completely changed the dominant story of people’s lives, transforming the economy.” If our economy has not fully recovered by 2015, it’s possible that surging international pressure to build Moon bases and send people to Mars may have a WW II-style transformative effect on the economy.

2) Strengthening National Security: North Korea has recently tested a long-range missile and an underground nuclear device. While it’s doubtful North Korea can weaponize its nukes or control the trajectory of its long-range missiles, the U.S. has taken reasonable defensive measures against a possible missile launch toward Hawaii on July 4. North Korea has also repudiated the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War.

Some have suggested that North Korea is Obama’s Cuban Missile Crisis (of JFK in 1962). In any case, 1953 is exactly one long wave ago and we should expect analogous international pressure points to develop. For example, Iran and North Korea are allies and share missile technology. Protests against the disputed Iranian election have driven a wedge between Obama and Iranian leaders.

In addition, as Obama deals with a resurgent Russia, pursues the war in Afghanistan, monitors progress in Iraq, and continues to defend the U.S. against a 9/11-style attack, Obama will depend on space technology. According to Gen. Armor, “Re-establishing U.S. space leadership in collaborative international projects in all space sectors — civil, military, intelligence — can be a keystone to re-energizing U.S. foreign policy.” As we approach the spectacular and very dynamic 2015 Maslow Window, this will be increasingly evident.

3) Avoiding a Replay of Sputnik: The U.S. should build on the spectacular foreign policy success of the International Space Station by providing international leadership so that global resources, that might otherwise fuel international conflicts at hotspots on Earth, are channeled into a constructive “Grand Alliance for Space.”

About one long wave ago as another international cooperative space effort was taking shape (the International Geophysical Year) during the first Cold War, one result was the surprise launch of the first artificial satellite (Sputnik) that triggered the first race to space and an American on the Moon in 1969.

Based on trends over the last 200 years, in the next few years we are likely to see NASA participate in — or even become part of — a truly global space agency (e.g., Interspace) with a deep space (i.e., beyond Earth orbit) focus.

As Gen. Armor points out, the development of space-related technologies will support Obama’s foreign policy objectives and stimulate global economic growth. And the release of raw human exploration passions will re-energize education reform. “Space has a proven record of inspiring the young … A robust space program will create jobs and motivate K-12 science and math education, as well as focus academia and business as sponsors of scholarships and internships.”

4. Elevating the Human Spirit: Mindful that a new Augustine report on space is being compiled at the request of Obama, I’d like to feature my favorite quote from the original. After describing several rationales for human expansion into the cosmos, Augustine et al. (1990) state that “perhaps the most important space benefit of all is intangible — the uplifting of spirits and human pride in response to truly great accomplishments — whether they be the sight of a single human orbiting freely around the Earth at 18,000 miles per hour, or a picture of Uranus’ moon Miranda transmitted 1.7 billion miles through space, and taking some 2-1/2 hours merely to arrive at our listening stations even when traveling literally at the speed of light. Such accomplishments have served to unite our nation, hold our attention, and inspire us all, particularly our youth, as few other events have done in the history of our nation or even the world.”

Indeed, with the advantage of a powerful, long-term perspective encompassing the last 200 years, it’s clear that large international audiences have been literally enthralled and had their spirits elevated by the twice-per-century pulses of great explorations and macro-engineering projects during Maslow Windows that were unprecedented for their time. The great explorations included Apollo Moon, the polar expeditions, Dr. Livingstone (“…I presume.”) in Africa, and Lewis and Clark; and the MEPs included Apollo infrastructure, the Panama and Suez Canals, and currently ISS.

Commenting on the spiritual importance of exploration, Gen. Armor states that “as a frontier culture, we must be actively engaged in conquering outer space. America will simply not be America is it is not.” And the spiritual and legacy benefits are not limited to America. “The space frontier must be part of any great nation’s legacy. Other countries that aspire to greatness — China, India, Russia and a growing number of new spacefaring states — inherently understand this and emulate us.”

The benefits of these intangible rationales will have a profound impact on our global culture. Leadership means “new missions and activities that continually set legal precedents to ensure that democracy, rule of law and market economy conventions prevail in outer space.” These powerful ideas that conquered the world, offer a positive vision of our space future — for the United States and the world — that is worth aspiring to and energetically working for.

Caltech scientists have recently shown that the presence of biology on a terrestrial planet acts naturally to more than double the lifetime (vs previous estimates) of the planet’s biosphere. In their paper (Proc. Natl. Acad. Scis., June 16, 2009) King-Fai Li et al. calculate that for the Earth, the predicted persistence of the photosynthetic biosphere 2.3 Ga into the future (plus the past 2.3 Ga of its existence) suggests that our planet will be remotely identifiable as an inhabited planet for nearly 1/2 of the Sun’s total lifetime.

The presence of life on Earth-like planets naturally delays the planet-killing effects of the Sun and CO2 much longer than previously believed. Click earth.Sun.

This has major implications for the search for extraterrestrial life because lengthening the total time a planet can support life makes it more likely that we will eventually detect them. Early searches for habitable extrasolar planets have already yielded interesting results (Tinetti et al., 2007). Indeed more successful searches are expected as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, because the 2 key drivers of human expansion into the cosmos are 1) the discovery and exploration (and eventual settlement) of Earth-like planets and 2) the search for extraterrestrial life, including intelligent ETs.

Being an Earth-like planet is not easy — that’s why there are so few of them. One big problem is the Sun because standard evolutionary models for Sun-like stars show they increase in luminosity as they age. For example, the Sun was only 70% its current brightness when it was born, nearly 5 Ga ago. The “Faint Young Sun” should have nudged Earth’s temperatures out of the habitable zone, but it didn’t, except for a couple possible “Snowball Earth” hiccups. However much later in its life, the brilliant Sun on steroids ends habitability as the oceans evaporate and Earth is fried by a version of the “runaway greenhouse” that has already occurred on Venus.

This “Faint Young Sun” paradox requires that 3.5 Ga ago the partial pressure of CO2 was near 7000 Pa (about 7% of one atmosphere) producing a greenhouse that warmed the surface. However, the brightening Sun means that CO2 must have been continuously removed from the atmosphere somehow, and it was James Lovelock in the early 1980s — author of the Gaia Hypothesis — who suggested that “biologically enhanced silicate weathering” could do the trick. His model indicated that CO2 would drop to 15 Pa — the lower limit for photosynthesis — in only 100 Ma, thus terminating the biosphere.

Li et al. have lengthened estimates of a terrestrial planet’s habitable lifetime by recognizing that the total atmospheric pressure plays a key role in regulating its temperature. On Earth, nitrogen (78% by volume) is continuously removed from the atmosphere by “oceanic primary productivity and subsequent burial of organic sediments…” They estimate that it is possible to sequester about 1 atmosphere of nitrogen in the crust and mantle through biological processes. As the Sun’s brightness increases and nitrogen is biologically removed from the atmosphere, Li et al. calculate that CO2 becomes less able to trap outgoing infrared radiation due to standard pressure broadening effects on the CO2 absorption bands.

In essence, the biologically-triggered decline in nitrogen atmospheric abundance becomes a natural climate regulator by weakening the ability of the CO2 greenhouse to trap surging solar heat radiation. This keeps Earth — and any inhabited extrasolar terrestrial planets — cooler and habitable much longer than previously expected.

One of the greatest engineering marvels in human history — and one that points directly toward the ebullient 2015 Maslow Window — the Panama Canal continues to win awards for its Expansion Program. And the Canal Authority continues to modernize the current canal and to internationally market the canal’s future.

The Panama Canal Expansion Program is a remarkable example of “early ebullience” that signals our rapid approach to the long-awaited 2015 Maslow Window. Click .

An interesting measure of the Canal’s ability to attract major attention from an international audience — one of the key characteristics of a modern Macro-Engineering Project (MEP) — is the response to my recent post, “10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space.” Published just under 5 weeks ago on May 18, it has surged to #3 on the All-Time Readers’ Favorite List; up from #4 as recently as June 16, and it continues to climb.

The Canal itself is a magnificent story and, in combination with the International Space Station and the Apollo Moon program, provides surprising insights into the future, such as: the probable costs of future space programs, the types of future MEPs most likely to succeed, and the key role of the long wave in major programs. I think the unusual, future-oriented approach of the post appeals to many, but I’m sure that most of the international web surfers who visit are attracted by the extraordinary nature of the Panama Canal itself.

For example, at the 2009 International Logistics and Material Handling Exhibition (SIL 2009) in Barcelona, Spain, the Panama Canal Expansion Program (CEP) was given the esteemed Samoter award for “Best Construction Project in the World.” The Canal Expansion Program was also named the “Best International Project” by judges for their management of the “largest infrastructure initiative in Latin America.” To date, the Panama CEP has won a total of 11 international awards.

The Panama Canal Authority continues to modernize its operations. Recently US$ 320 M were invested in a new lighting system for increased safety, a new track and turntable system that cuts transit times, and several new tugboats. The Canal Authority has also recently signed MOUs with U.S. east coast port authorities of Philadelphia (6/12/09) and Maryland (6/2/09) to promote trade and economic growth and the “All-Water Route” connecting Asia to the U.S. east coast via the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal Expansion Program continues to be perhaps the most visible example of “early ebullience” in the world today. And despite the global recession, the CEP remains a sparkling bridge to more properous times in the near future. With its completion scheduled for 2014, the Canal will signal the opening of the 2015 Maslow Window and stimulate economic growth throughout the world — enabling human expansion into the cosmos.

Although the U.S. has led the world in higher education for decades, today only 41% of young adults (ages 25-34) in the U.S. have college degrees, compared to more than 50% in Japan, Korea, and Canada, according to Peter McPherson in today’s Wall Street Journal (6/20/09), the former chair of Dow Jones & Co. and former president of Michigan State University. Plus, the U.S. ranks only 9th in the proportion of young adults with college degrees among countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Expanding access to higher education will drive near-term human expansion into the cosmos. Click .

McPherson believes that America’s “prominence is at risk” because the United States’ economic future depends on the intellectual capital of its young people. “Our educational advantage made us the world’s leader in discovery, invention and innovation.” Likewise, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) has recently pointed out that “Our future strength as a nation will rest, in large part, on scientific and technical talent,” (Space News, 4/6/09).

Growing public calls for improvement of U.S. education are reminiscent of those one long wave ago during the 1950s when the Cold War and Sputnik were the global focus. For example, in Math and Science Education Perspectives, I reminded readers that only 10 days after the surprise launch of Sputnik “the New York Times identified U.S. education as the problem, because Soviet science students were better motivated and given more prestige.” And 70% of Gallup poll respondents believed that U.S. high school students should become more educationally competitive with their Soviet counterparts! In response to America’s crisis of self-confidence, in 1958 Congress advocated beefing up math and science education from the elementary to high schools.

It’s clear that education reduces unemployment; e.g., in May, 2009 only 4.8% of those with bachelor’s degrees were unemployed compared to more than double that (10.0%) for those with a high school diploma, and soaring to 15.5% for those with less education. (For perspective, 5% to 11% are considered recession-level unemployment rates, while unemployment in 1933 during the Great Depression was 25%.) It’s of great concern that individuals without a high school education may be heading to their own education-related Depression.

McPherson suggests that we make 55% of young adults with a college degree our national target for 2025 — the end of the 2015 Maslow Window. That’s an increase of 875,000 graduates per year.

McPherson sees a parallel between our current situation and the post-WW II years, about one long wave ago. “In the 15 years following WW II, post-secondary enrollment expanded by 82%. And in the baby-boomer period of 1962-76, enrollment expanded by a whopping 174%.”

Of course he’s describing the post-War boom that culminated in the unparalled economic boom of the 1960s Maslow Window. And we can expect to see that occur again as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window.

The difference is the current major global recession that began during the Panic of 2008; i.e., during the years around 1949 there was no such thing, probably because of sound financial practices of the time and financial reforms enacted during the Great Depression. But McPherson suggests that “The sobering lessons from the current economic situation could contribute to a similar pattern of thought and action.”

It’s possible that our current economic situation may have more in common with the 1890 – 1914 interval (culminating in the celebrated Peary/Panama Maslow Window) than 1945 – 1970 (the Apollo Maslow Window). The former featured the Panic of 1893 followed by a devastating, nearly decade-long recession that ended just before the most ebullient Peary/Panama Maslow Window opened in 1903. While the latter had no post-WW II financial panic as the long boom culminated in the unparalleled (for its time) economic boom of the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window.

As McPherson states, education can play an important role in our current recession. But as the history of the 1950s and 1960s shows, strong global interests in Moon bases will generate two extremely important factors: international competition (and cooperation) and raw human exploration passions. History shows that both have explosive effects on the minds of young people and their interest in education.

This is an updated mid-month 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 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.

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 6/15/09

I. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts — 10/20/08
2) 10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09
3) Nereus, Mohole, Apollo and the New Race to Space — 6/12/08
4) Fermi vs. Malthus: A “Sustainability” Solution? — 6/7/09
5) 10 Spiritual Connections of the Human Exploration of Space — 5/31/09

II. ALL-TIME — Readers’ Favorites

1) Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts — 10/20/08
2) State of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for 2009 — 1/17/09
3) 10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space — 6/22/08
4)10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09
5) Forecasting the Next 20 Years in Space — State of the Wave, 9/12/08 — 9/14/08

Regarding #4, in just under one month, the “10 Lessons Panama…” post has become the 4th most read post of All-Time on this Blog…and still moving up!

Thanks to Aron Sora of Trenton, NJ at Habitation Intention for responding to my previous post with this question:

Is it an either or thing? Will having a deep sea program prevent the development of a space program or visa versa. Are there enough resources during a Maslow window to support both?

In the 2015 Maslow Window — based on the last 200 years — I’m sure it will be both, but the emphasis will most likely be on space development and colonization; I think that’s the lesson of the 1960s.

I’ve been asked before by 21stCenturyWaves.com readers why we don’t focus on Antarctica or the Ocean Floor as our next Great Exploration — after all they are closer! I’m sure we’ll continue to internationally develop these areas, but one big hint for your question is that President Kennedy chose to send us to the Moon. That was, and still is the most exciting (especially for the general public) direction with the greatest potential for human expansion. You may be aware that in 1992, Marshall Savage started his proposed colonization of the Galaxy with Ocean Colonies on Earth.

What strikes me about Project Mohole is that Dr. Munk and his collaborators really felt a competition between their Earth Science and the Race to Space! You can still hear that sentiment today when some scientists complain about the cost of establishing bases on the Moon. Unfortunately, Mohole was an early casualty of the inevitable collapse of 1960s Maslow Window ebullience, triggered by the Vietnam War and political issues with Mohole’s prime contractor Brown & Root.

Coincidentally, in the late 1980s when I was assembling an international team for our studies of manned lunar and Mars missions at General Dynamics, we chose Brown & Root as our base infrastructure experts. They were great people to work with. My Houston trips were always fun because after meetings with our friends at Johnson Space Center, I’d usually stop by Brown & Root’s Houston headquarters and then visit Larry Bell’s Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture at the University of Houston; enjoyed working with them!

Based on macroeconomic data and historical trends of the last 200 years (including the 1960s!), it’s apparent that declining financial or other resources do not directly terminate Great Explorations and MEPs. It’s the decay of widespread ebullience — the force that initially makes Great Explorations and MEPs seem irresistible to the general public through their ascent to higher levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy — that eventually causes their “surprise” demise.

Ebullience — the hallmark of a Maslow Window — is a very intense, widespread form of Keynesian “animal spirits” and is a rare phenomenon. In the last 200 years it has appeared only during the rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms that trigger Maslow Windows.

Indeed, recent international events show the U.S. and other countries are financially capable of investing a few hundred billion USD in a decade of large-scale space colonization at almost any time they choose to do so — based on $ multi-B expenditures on recent wars and “stimulus” packages. But widespread ebullience is caused only by a major economic boom — not the reverse — presumably because these are stimulating times when a majority of citizens sense they are actually getting ahead.

Keep in mind that Maslow Windows are times of societal ebullience when it’s felt that almost anything is possible. If you can’t personally remember the 1960s or haven’t read about it, you may not understand how exceptional it really was. To get the feel for the ebullience of the 1960s, I suggest you scan my post on “The Liberal Hour.”

By the way, I suspect that the Peary/Panama Maslow Window (~1903 to 1913) featuring Teddy Roosevelt, may have been the most ebullient decade in the entire history of the U.S. The world had just survived the Crash of 1893 and the associated deep recession (ending 1899), and the U.S. was getting used to being a major economic power. And they really felt they could do virtually anything.

Last week the Nereus — an unmanned submersible — ebulliently plunged to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench near Guam in the western Pacific (Baltimore Sun, 6/5/09; F. Roylance). At 35,761 feet below sea level (SL), the Deep’s more than a mile farther below SL than the summit of Mt. Everest is above it, and the weight of the overlying water produces pressures 1100 times those at SL — “like having the weight of 3 SUVs on your big toe.”

Does Nereus point to a new race to “inner space”? Click nereus3.doc.

Indeed, “the deepest ocean trenches are cold and dark and hostile places, visited by humans even less often than the surface of the Moon,” (San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/3/09; S. Liewer). The last time the Deep’s frigid privacy was violated was in 1998 by a Japanese robotic craft, the Kaiko. But the ocean got its revenge in 2003 when Kaiko’s control cable snapped and it was lost. Although Nereus also has a cable, it can voluntarily separate from it and swim independently or float to the surface.

According to Andy Bowen, Nereus’ developer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, “With a robot like Nereus, we can now explore virtually anywhere in the ocean… I believe it marks the start of a new era in ocean exploration.”

Although Nereus is officially a scientific and engineering project, it’s also evidence of increasing “early ebullience” as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window. Despite the global recession, early ebullience is evident around the world today — e.g., booming Antarctic tourism, architectural projects such as the Shanghai Tower, the Panama Canal Expansion Project, Spaceport America and the birth of the space tourism industry, the International Space Station itself (an “international marvel”), international plans for bases on the Moon. Widespread ebullience will fundamentally drive public interest in Apollo-style space spectaculars and MEPs and briefly become the dominant global zeitgeist from 2015 to 2025, as it did during the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window.

Despite its ebullience, or maybe because of it (!), Nereus has its critics. For example, well-known deep ocean explorer Robert Ballard — best known for discovering the remains of the Titanic in 1985 — thinks that “reaching the bottom of the ocean isn’t worth the effort,” (San Diego U-T, 6/3/09), because other submersibles can already reach 95% of the ocean floor.

But Chris German, also of Woods Hole, offers an ebullient reply to Ballard, clearly reminiscent of past Apollo astronauts on the Moon, “It’s not just a matter of planting a flag and saying ‘Aren’t we clever?’…Going to the deepest parts of the ocean means there’s no place on Earth we can’t go,” (italics mine).

And although Bowen insists that the Nereus team doesn’t aim to break the depth record of the Trieste and Kaiko, in a revealing ebullient moment, Bowen admits that indeed “we may be looking for that extra meter.”

Project Mohole was supposed to be Earth Science’s answer to the Apollo Moon program. Click .

Nereus reminds us that about one long wave ago, the ebullient race to “inner space” was closely linked to the race to outer space.

1960, January 23: The Trieste. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh — the ocean’s most daring explorers — took the Trieste 35,813 feet straight down into the Challenger Deep. It was the first and only time that humans have made the trip. Bowen, Ballard, and others still regard the Trieste mission with awe (and a little envy)!

1961, March: Project Mohole. After this ebullient brainchild of Scripps Institute of Oceanography geophysicist Walter Munk — to drill through the crust to the upper mantle and return samples — was funded by National Science Foundation in 1958, the first test drills in spring, 1961 were very successful. Drill holes reached about 600 feet into the crust through a record 11,700 feet of water, off the west coast of Mexico.

Some ebullient geophysicists envision Project Mohole returning samples from the Earth’s mantle about the same time as Apollo astronauts arrive on the Moon. Mantle rocks and Moon rocks would provide clues to the origin of the Earth and Moon.

1961, April 9: President Kennedy Congratulates Mohole. The ebullient icon of the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window admired the Mohole team: “The success of the drilling in almost 12,000 feet of water…and the penetration of the ocean crust… constitute a remarkable achievement and an historic landmark…” (New York Times, 4/9/61).

1961, May 25: JFK’s To the Moon Speech. Before a joint session of Congress, President Kennedy announces that the U.S. will send an astronaut to the Moon and return him safely before the end of the decade. He wants to “catch up to and overtake” the Soviet Union in the “space race.”

1966, April 19: Congress Cancels Mohole. Due to scientific debates, political controversy, and budget stress due to the Vietnam War, Congress voted to cut off funds for Project Mohole. It’s cost estimates had finally soared beyond $ 100 M. Project Mohole sadly became Project “No Hole.”

In his 1999 book, The Executive Decisionmaking Process, Ralph Sanders criticizes the leaders of Mohole for getting caught up in the ebullience of the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window, “The scientists argued that, just as in the space program, the U.S. engaged in a race with the Soviets for discovering new and important facts about the Earth’s geology.”

Sanders asserts that Mohole failed because its leadership should have been engineers and technologists (in the style of Apollo) — not Earth scientists, and that the scientists were focused on more ebullient, and less engineering-related questions like:

“Can ocean and geologic science improve the nation’s image?”
and
“Can U.S. science beat Soviet science in this important field?”

My point here is not to question the visionary brilliance of Munk, Hess, and others who conceived of Mohole, but to simply illustrate the power of ebullience during a Maslow Window on even the best scientific minds, as well as on society at-large.

1969, July 20: Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to step on the Moon.

By analogy with the Trieste, Mohole, and Apollo, it’s likely that Nereus may be a precursor of the 2015 Maslow Window, when oceans, energy, and other global interests will interact strongly with human expansion into the cosmos.

In 1950 Enrico Fermi was impressed that the light time across our Galaxy is about 5 orders of magnitude less than its age, because he realized — even for non-relativistic speeds — that if any advanced extraterrestrial (ET) civilization ever existed, they should have been here by now; so Fermi asked, “Where are They?”

Are we on Klaatu’s galactic travel itinerary? Click .

Recently, Jacob Haqq-Misra and Seth Baum (JH/SB) of Penn State (Journal of British Interplanetary Society, February, 2009) have proposed the “Sustainability Solution.” In a nutshell, their idea is that environmental issues (e.g., resource shortages) may slow down exponential expansion of ETs (and humans) into the Galaxy and thus explain “the absence of observed extraterrestrial civilization.”

JH/SB are proposing a neo-Malthusian argument: “Human civilization cannot indefinitely sustain exponential growth in the consumption of human resources.” This is, of course, a strawman because of the phrase “indefinitely” on Earth. In actuality, human civilization is preparing for its next quantum leap into the cosmos during the 2015 Maslow Window.

Despite the fact that JH/SB assure us (!) that “All hope is not lost for human civilization,” their analysis is unconvincing — economically, politically, technologically, historically, and even morally – and their negative tone suggests minimal awareness of macroeconomic data and historical trends of the last 200+ years that indicate human civilization is NOT near the edge of starvation or collapse. We’re very near an ebullient, transformative era — superseding even the 1960s boom — of unparalleled human prosperity and spectacular expansion into the cosmos.

With a 21st Century perspective, it’s clear that neo-Malthusian scenarios are unrealistic because they ignore the lessons of two centuries of technology development and economic growth. For example, in 2007 the New York Times (8/7/07; N. Wade) explained that the Industrial Revolution — the economic boom in England around 1800, during the Lewis & Clark Maslow Window — occurred because “people gradually developed the strange new behaviors required to make a modern economy work. The middle-class values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save,” according to Gregory Clark (UC, Davis). And others explain that, in a modern economy, the combination of educated people armed with new science and technologies for food production, plus the existence of economic freedom and profitable opportunities ensure that abundant food supplies will exist.

Over the last 200 years — since the Industrial Revolution — these factors have allowed human civilization to avoid any global Malthusian crisis.

Toward the end of their paper, JH/SB admit that space-based solar power and space materials suggest that “the limits to exponential growth may lie beyond planetary scale…” But then strangely suggest that “perhaps civilization can safely undergo exponential growth until – but only until – it has colonized a solar system.” This comment might have carried more weight 30 years ago, but I think the current situation is better summarized by K.F. Long (J. British Interplanetary Soc., March, 2009) in Long’s review of interstellar propulsion candidates, “There are many dozens of propulsion schemes to show us how to get there. It is simply a question of when we will go — not if.”

JH/SB’s concept of “sustainability” is fuzzy, especially in regard to economic growth, but they do insist that, “Should human civilization successfully transition to sustainable development, it would have the opportunity to colonize the Galaxy.” If, for example, “sustainability” actually means lower economic growth then we’re faced with a moral problem according to Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman (2005). In The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, Friedman explains that during times of rising living standards a society becomes “more open and democratic.” Indeed it’s economic growth, not just high living standards, that are essential, because, “Merely being rich is no protection against a society’s retreat into rigidity and intolerance once enough of its citizens lose the sense that they are getting ahead.”

In addition to morality, it’s not clear how “sustainability” relates to ebullience, the powerful societal phenomenon that — over the last 200 years — appears to fundamentally drive great explorations and macro-engineering projects. Like the “animal spirits” of Keynes, ebullience is affluence-induced, and thus in the absence of the major, twice-per-century economic booms (seen over the last 200 years), great explorations and MEPs — including space colonization — might not exist.

In the spirit of Sir Martin Rees (Cambridge Univ.) — who believes that “the prime exploratory challenge of the next fifty years … is surely to seek firm evidence for, or against, the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.” — it’s fun to turn JH/SB’s argument around and ask: If one explanation for the lack of ETs visiting Earth is “sustainability,” would the presence of ET spacecraft near Earth — as proposed by scientific investigators like Friedman (2008) — indicate that the exponential growth of ET societies into the Galaxy is sustainable?

This is an updated end-of-May 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 May, and II) Favorites over 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 6/1/09

I. MAY — Readers’ Favorites

1) Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts — 10/20/09
2) 10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09
3) Without Adventure Civilization is in Full Decay — 12/8/08
4) How Close Are We to Space Colonization — 2/1/09
5) Getting Star Trek Right! — 5/11/09

II. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1)10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09
2) Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts — 10/20/08
3) Mercury — An Exciting World Awaiting Human Utilization — 5/24/09
4) Kurzweil’s Singularity and the Human Future in Space — 5/25/09
5) Without Adventure Civilization is in Full Decay — 12/8/08

21stCenturyWaves.com is again happily participating in the Carnival of Space…the 105th! This week it’s hosted by Dr. Ian O’Neill.

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.