This site is part of global community of space-related discussions, but currently it’s not very closely knit.

You might try the online space-related forums of SEDS: http://forums.seds.org/

Glad you enjoyed the Buzz Aldrin post and thanks for your comment about my comment.

Of course you’re correct — and elsewhere I always mention this — there was no 2008-style financial panic in the decade just before the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window. This is the only exception in the last 200 years and is apparently due to the post-World War II boom and reforms enacted during the 1930s Great Depression.

The point is — although a financial panic and major recession create a painful crisis — that over the last 200 years, no financial panic/recession has ever delayed the opening of a Maslow Window or, in any observable way, diminished their Great Explorations or MEPs. And 2015 is unlikely to be the first exception.

Please see recent posts on this and watch soon for another key post on this topic.

Thanks for your comment, but it shows you’re a little fuzzy about how individuals and groups interact with technology and each other to produce modern civilization. The media and most public figures and academics saturate us with short-term thinking, so it’s hard for most people to get a clear vision of the future from them.

In fact, space is inevitable even in the short-term. It doesn’t matter if you and I want it or not; it’s a routine consequence of growing economic and societal health. And in fact, the current major recession is a common feature of the decade just prior to pulses of major exploration and technology projects, over the last 200 years! The drive toward space colonization is fundamentally a function of human nature and the laws of economics. It’s that simple.

Over the last 200 years, great explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark) and macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal) cluster together near major, rhythmic, twice-per-century economic booms. These are special times (called Maslow Windows)! If you can’t remember the 1960s you’ve never experienced the affluence-induced ebullience that sprouts nearly everywhere. For most people, the ebullience catapults them to elevated levels of Maslow’s hierarchy where their expanded worldviews make great explorations and MEPs seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible. This will start to happen again near 2015…

For better or worse, this is how the world really works — at least over the last 200+ years.
I hope you’ll check out a couple more posts…here’s one you might like.