On Sundays I usually take a quick tour of the New York Times OpEd section to see if they have any interesting long-term insights. Today I was intrigued by two celebrated columnists who happen to be on the same page (12): Frank Rich on “Obama at the Precipice” about the threat of Afghanistan to Obama’s presidency, and Thomas Friedman on “The New Sputnik” about China going green.

Did China just launch its 21st century version of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite that was in 1957 “the shock of the century”? Click

I’m always encouraged when I see major journalists attempting to play the “long wave” analysis game, even if they don’t call it that. And we definitely have two of them here. But the end result is often questionable. For example, I can’t see a significant parallel with a green China and Sputnik, although Friedman does. And, although many folks are fascinated with proposed parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam, Rich’s explanation isn’t very convincing to me. So I give them an “A” for their creative approach, but have to give them a “C-” for their analysis. Here’s why.

21stCenturyWaves.com explains the clearly observed, twice-per-century major clusters of great explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (e.g., World War I) as fundamentally driven by long waves in the economy — essentially a 56-year long business cycle — that is documented back almost 200 years.

This is a powerful idea that offers us scientific predictability for the next 20+ years of major exploration, engineering, and military events, based on patterns in macroeconomic data and historical trends over the last 200+ years. The basic idea is that many major events in society are being enabled and/or encouraged by our position in the 55-60 year long wave.

Rich seems excited about this idea. For example, “Analogies between Vietnam and Afghanistan are the rage these days.” Referring to the “hawkish young President Kennedy wrestling with Vietnam during his first months in office. … The remarkable parallels to 2009 became clear last week…” And as Gordon Goldstein — author of Lessons in Disaster, the new “must-read book” for Obama — recently said to Rich, “it’s ‘eerie’ how closely even these political maneuvers track those of half a century ago, when JFK was weighing whether to send combat troops to Vietnam.”

And yet Rich uses the long wave idea in a casual way. One problem is that 2009 minus 56 (the approximate length of the long wave) is 1953 — several years before John F. Kennedy became president. This date suggests there might be interesting parallels between 2009 and the Korean War, a conflict that involved the United Nations and others in a proxy war that was part of the larger Cold War; it ended in 1953.

Even a year or two makes a difference in the long wave’s influence on society. For example, in July, 2007, the world was still experiencing the “greatest boom ever,” which was only months before the Panic of 2008. This reminds us that JFK became president as the 1960 economic boom was taking off — certainly a far cry from the experience of Obama who was greeted by the Panic of 2008 and a great recession. Not to mention that no Vietnamese soldier ever directly attacked New York City. While there might eventually be political dangers for Obama in Afghanistan, parallels between the context and events of Vietnam and Afghanistan are exaggerated.

Friedman, in “The New Sputnik,” is a little better with his arithmetic, but less convincing with his analysis. Sputnik’s surprise launch was in 1957 (remember that 2009 – 56 = 1953) which is only 4 years off; about 1/2 the error of Rich. However, Friedman equates Sputnik with China’s recent energy direction, “I believe the Chinese decision to go green is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik — the world’s first Earth-orbiting satellite.” Friedman refers to China’s decision to invest in solar energy, wind power, and batteries so they can exploit future global markets in these areas.

I think the challenge that China presents to the West in these technologies will increase global competition and thus have a net positive effect. However, I see little relation of this to Sputnik, as Friedman essentially admits, “Unfortunately we’re still not racing. It’s like Sputnik went up and we think it’s just a shooting star.”

In 1957, nobody had to explain the symbolic, technological, and military threat of Sputnik to the West. Sputnik changed the world and launched the first Space Age that culminated in an American on the Moon in 1969.

Unless we are able to channel global interests in lunar bases and the commercial development of space into a “Grand Alliance for Space,” we may be forced to re-live a Sputnik-like event near 2013 when possibly a China-led consortium announces their program for the aggressive exploration and colonization of space, including the ultimate “green” technology: space-based solar power collectors that provide inexhaustible, clean energy to Earth to meet the 24/7 demands of economic growth everywhere on Earth.

Now that’s a Sputnik-like event that everyone would recognize.

If not, you’ve got only a couple more weeks. NASA says LCROSS — the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite — will be a “smashing success” on October 9! (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one, but I promise to avoid impact-related puns from here on…)

Any Lunarians vacationing in the south polar Moon crater Cabeus A are headed for an exciting morning October 9 when a large NASA spacecraft crashes into it. Click .

Water on the Moon is big news today. For example, NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), that hitched a ride almost a year ago onboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, discovered both water and hydroxl molecules especially in the lunar polar regions (Science, September 24, 2009). According to Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland,

“Our analysis unequivocally confirms the presence of these molecules on the Moon’s surface and reveals that the entire surface appears to be hydrated during at least some portion of the lunar day.”

Although water and hydroxyl are present in larger abundances than expected and are a very exciting discovery, the actual water molecule fractions are only about 1000 ppm of lunar soil. Apparently hydrogen ions in the solar wind arriving at the lunar surface interact during the day with oxygen-rich minerals near the lunar surface to produce the observed water.

Regarding the M3 lunar surface water discovery, Carle Pieters of Brown University cautions that,

“When we say ‘water on the Moon,’ we are not talking about lakes, oceans, or even puddles. Water on the Moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust spacifically in the top millimeters of the Moon’s surface.”

Of course, the lost lunar lakes (or even oceans) would be the most important and cost-effective resource we could find on the Moon — the holy grail for lunar scientists and others interested in studying, developing, and colonizing the Moon. Active international interest in lunar polar waters is consistent with accelerating human expansion into the cosmos as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window.

To detect these types of major water deposits on the Moon — suggested previously by Clementine (1994) and Lunar Prospector (1999) — NASA has developed LCROSS that will impact a Centaur upper stage at 2.5 km/sec on the Moon and create an ejecta cloud expected to expand 10+ km above the surface.

In a previous post, India and NASA Search for the Lost Lunar Lakes, you may want to check out my interview with Lunar Prospector PI Dr. Alan Binder as well as the challenging comments of two other lunar scientists, Drs. Paul Spudis and Stewart Nozette.

LCROSS is not exactly a subtle technique but it should meet our basic needs. On October 9, after venting any remaining fuel from Centaur, it will will impact the Moon, excavating at least 200 tons of lunar rock and soil. The Shepherding Spacecraft will rapidly descend into the plume making in situ measurements of its composition — searching for lunar water — and transmiting this data back to Earth, just before it creates a second impact plume on the Moon.

Funseekers on Earth — amateur astronomers and students — with 10″ or larger telescopes may be able to see the plume and participate in the discovery! Many public events are planned around the country or you can watch from the comfort of your video room at home on NASA TV. NASA also provides impact timing for those planning their own LCROSS Impact Party. See this link and have a blast!

Fear not. The Augustine Commission and Congress notwithstanding, President Obama is setting the stage for the next Space Age. And below I examine 2 specific, well-constrained scenarios, and their dynamics, showing how this is likely to occur.

Norman Augustine, former Lockheed Martin CEO, states we need $ 3 billion more per year to have a viable Moon program. Click .

It is true that chair Norman Augustine — who’s becoming known as “the 3 billion dollar man” — insists, “The current program that’s being pursued is not executable,” because a return to the Moon requires $ 3 B more annually. It’s also true that in response to an Arizona Congressman (who’s married to an astronaut) who accused Augustine of presenting “a set of alternatives that look almost like cartoons,” Augustine retorted, “I respect your feelings, but I must question your facts.”

But this is all just the usual short-term political stuff.

In reality — as the last 200+ years have shown — extraordinary pulses of activity in exploration and engineering are enabled by reliable, long-term business cycles. And all indicators suggest we’re sneaking up on the edge of another Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology(GAPET).

Typically, during the twice-per-century upswings of the long economic wave and within a decade after a major financial panic (such as the Panic of 2008) and its major recession, we emerge into an ebullient, transformative decade known as a Maslow Window. Perhaps the most ebullient one followed the Panic of 1893 and was led by Theodore Roosevelt: the Peary/Panama Maslow Window from 1903 to 1913. But before that the mid-19th century Dr. Livingstone/Suez Maslow Window produced the “technological jewel of the 19th century,” the Suez Canal, and the famous Lewis and Clark Maslow Window opened the Great Northwest to the world in 1805.

Our most recent Maslow Window — the stunning 1960s Apollo Moon decade — was unique in the last 200+ years in that it wasn’t immediately preceded by a financial panic or great recession. But the approaching Maslow Window, expected to open near 2015, resumed the much more “normal” sequence of the last 200+ years when the Panic of 2008 heralded its impending arrival.

So one key lesson of the last 200 years is: The Panic of 2008 supports our expectation that the next Maslow Window — the next Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology — will open near 2015.

And President Obama is playing a key role in triggering GAPET, although there is understandably a lot of confusion about that, especially among those unaware of the long-term forces that govern the ebullient, large-scale human affairs of Maslow Windows.

For example, shortly after the Panic of 2008, Reagan economist Arthur (“Laffer Curve”) Laffer complained that President George W. Bush “will be remembered like Herbert Hoover…(and that) the age of prosperity is over,” (WSJ, 10/27/08). And others — including Obama — have compared Obama to Franklin D. Roosevelt who was president during the Great Depression. Surprisingly, Keynesian economists George Akerloff (a Nobel-winner) and Robert Shiller don’t think FDR (or Hoover) went far enough:

“Confidence — and the economy itself — was not restored until World War II completely changed the dominant story of people’s lives, transforming the economy.”

In reality, 21stCenturyWaves.com has identified the Great Depression as an example of panic/recessions that occur 16-18 years after a Maslow Window (another is the Great Victorian Depression of 1873); they tend to be very long and severe as the long wave descends. Conversely, the Panic of 2008 is typical of upswings in the long wave that precede, by less than a decade, the transformative GAPET of Maslow Windows. While still an economic crisis characterized by major suffering, the Panic of 2008 had only a small chance (e.g., WSJ, 9/1/09; Allan Meltzer) of ever evolving into a true 1930s-style Depression (e.g., 25% unemployment).

Given the high likelihood of our next Maslow Window materializing near 2015, the key question is: How will Obama create the exceptional prosperity that is the hallmark of such Camelot-like times?

There are basically 2 options:

OPTION I: Obama becomes a 2-term President: He becomes the new John F. Kennedy without the Vietnam-style baggage of LBJ.
Historical/Economic Model: The 1960s Apollo Maslow Window.

Three ways Obama could trigger prosperity are:

a) The recession will end naturally and prosperity will follow.
Post-War recessions have averaged 11.3 months in length (with the longest 16 months) and the current one is 22 months old. Most economists think the economy hit bottom recently and is currently recovering.

b) Obama will “reset” his presidency resulting in prosperity.
Ted Van Dyk, a long-time Democrat and formerly Vice President Hubert Humphery’s assistant in the LBJ Whitehouse, advises Obama to cut back his proposals and expectations (WSJ, 7/17/09):

“You made promises about jobs that would be ‘created and saved’ by the stimulus package. Those promises have not held up. You continue to engage in hyperbole by claiming that your health-care and energy plans will save tax dollars. Congressional Budget Office analysis indicates otherwise.”

c) The Keynesians are right and major government spending and deficits result in prosperity.
For example, according to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the idea of slowing major stimulus spending would be an “error of historical proportions,” (WSJ, 9/22/09; B. Stephens). And George Akerloff and Robert Shiller (WSJ, 4/24/09) believe that,

An understanding of animal spirits — the human psychology and culture at the heart of economic activity — confirms the need for restoring the role of regulators as guiding hands in a healthy, productive free-enterprise system. History — including recent history — shows that without regulation, animal spirits will drive economic activity to extremes.

Importantly, an especially intense version of animal spirits (called “ebullience” here) is apparently responsible for the extraordinary exploration and engineering activities during Maslow Windows.

Bottom Line for Option I:
It appears that combinations of b and c are unlikely, but various combinations of a and b or a and c could occur.

In either case, Obama becomes the new JFK. He continues the brilliant, transformative lagacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal, that began with Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark expedition.

OPTION II: Obama becomes a 1-term president: He becomes the new Grover Cleveland (and possibly LBJ), and leads to a pro-prosperity Republican presidency.
Historical/Economic Model: The Peary/Panama Maslow Window (1903-13).

The New York Times (9/6/09; Richard Stevenson) observed that,

Nearly eight months after the inauguration, the economy … has stabilized sufficiently that the nation is no longer gripped by the sense of urgency that allowed Mr. Obama, almost without challenge, to carry out an audacious act of industrial engineering: reshaping the automobile industry from the Oval Office in a matter of weeks … On health care, he is getting no such philosophical pass … The most relevant political framework instead appears to be a more problematic one inherited from his predecesser: a general loss of faith in government.

On August 21, the Wall Street Journal (8/25/09; William McGurn) reported that,

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said his boss was “quite comforrtable” with the idea that sticking to his agenda may well mean “he only lives in this house” for one term.

Indeed, if unemployment remains high into 2012, reelection will be a challenge for Obama.

Three things that could hinder Obama’s reelection are:

a) The Stimulus has not worked.
The Wall Street Journal (9/17/09; Cogan,Taylor,Wieland) reports that,

The data show government transfers and rebates have not increased consumption at all … and that the resilience of the private sector following the fall 2008 panic — not the fiscal stimulus program — deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the impressive growth improvement from the first to the second quarter.

And as unempoyment heads toward 10%, Obama’s promise that rapid passage of the stimulus package would keep unemployment below 8% has not been realized.

b) Obama’s economic policy may be fundamentally flawed.

Published economic research by the current head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors — Christina Romer — raises doubts about Obama’s policy of major government spending to end the recession. The Wall Street Journal (8/21/09; Alan Reynolds) quotes Professor Romer’s 1999 study (J. Econ. Perspect.) that between the pre-WW I era and the era of big government (post-WW II), “recessions have become only slightly less severe…and recessions have not become noticeably shorter,” in fact post-WW II recessions are one month longer. WSJ concludes that, based on economic history since 1887, “bigger government appears to produce only bigger and longer recessions.”

If this is true, Obama’s large stimulus/bailout packages and large federal budgets will not stimulate the economy in his first term.

According to William Gale of Brookings,

The budget outlook at every horizon is troubling: the fiscal-year 2009 budget is enormous; the ten-year projection is clearly unsustainable; and the long-term outlook is dire and increasingly urgent.

Add to this White House projections of a 10-year record federal deficit of $ 9 T, and by next decade’s end the national debt will be 75% of GDP, and it’s easy to see why Obama’s job approval ratings have settled into the low 50s.

c) Afghanistan turns into Vietnam.

The New York Times (8/23/09; Peter Baker) has focused on the dangers a protracted conflict in Afghanistan could have on Obama, “The LBJ model — a president who aspired to reshape America at home while fighting a losing war abroad — is one that haunts Mr. Obama’s White House as it seeks to salvage Afghanistan while enacting an expansive domestic program.”

And despite considerable personal popularity around the world, “All that good will so far has translated into limited tangible plicy benefits for Mr. Obama … foreign leaders have not gone out of their way to give him what he has sought,” (NYT, 9/20/09; Peter Baker)

An interesting bottomline emerges:

Re: Prospects for the New Space Age Near 2015:
Based on patterns in macroeconomic data and historical trends over the last 200 years, all realistic roads lead to a 2015 Maslow Window featuring a Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology, although wildcards are possible.

Re: Mr. Obama’s Prospects:
Despite the fact that Mr. Obama is currently setting the stage for a robust, transformative new Space Age within the next 3-5 years, his presidential prospects remain uncertain.

Obama’s long wave timing and election circumstances (i.e., panic/recession) have more parallels with the 1893-1913 Peary/Panama Maslow Window — in which a 1-term Democrat (Grover Cleveland) was replaced by a pro-prosperity Republican — than with the 1949-1969 Apollo Maslow Window of John F. Kennedy. And Obama’s continuing challenges with high unemployment, record deficits, huge budgets, and Afghanistan, pose real dangers for him.

As the New York Times noted and as evidenced by Obama’s descending poll numbers, many Americans are again expressing skepticism about big government and the economy. Obama will have to create prosperity — the cornerstone of the 2015 Maslow Window — and given Obama’s popularity and flexibility, he’s quite capable of doing it.

21stCenturyWaves.com is again happily participating in the Carnival of Space.

This week the Carnival of Space #121 is presented by Brian Wang at NextBigFuture.com.

ALSO…

…You may have noticed that the Blogroll has changed recently.
After routinely translating from the old Blogroll style to the 10 Wave Guides, I finally decided to build the current Blogroll around them.

The 10 Wave Guides are used to facilitate the evaluation of 21stCenturyWaves.com’s Forecasts against global trends and key events on a daily basis. I have classified the links according to how they are typically used in this blog. The separate category on Long Waves has been retained in the blogroll.

The new 10 Wave Guides blogroll has also been expanded in several areas and this will continue. I hope this will assist readers of 21stCenturyWaves.com as much as it has us.

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) Favorites over the Last 30 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 9/16/09

I. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) Kepler, Carl Sagan, and the Guzman Prize — Our Century-Long Search for Space Aliens — 8/23/09
2) State of the Wave — Obama is Not LBJ; New Space Age Will Bloom — 8/29/09
3) Immortality — An Ebullient 21st Century Technology That’s To Die For! — 9/10/09
4) 10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09
5) Private Funding for the Settlement of Mars Has Begun — 9/07/09

2. THE LAST 30 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) State of the Wave — Obama is Not LBJ; New Space Age Will Bloom — 8/29/09
2) Was the 1960s Apollo Moon Program an Anomaly? — 2/3/09
3) Kepler, Carl Sagan, and the Guzman Prize — Our Century-Long Search for Space Aliens — 8/23/09
4)10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09
5) Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts — 10/20/08

Special Thanks to Contributing Editors Carol Lane and Anny Wong for information and advice on this topic.

Just before last week’s International Symposium on Solar Energy in Space (in Toronto), Japan announced their spectacular new $ 21 B space-based solar power initiative. According to Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, the Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp. will lead a 15-company team that will build the first major solar power plant in space. Via microwaves, it will eventually beam enough energy back to Japan for nearly 300,000 houses.

Japan is betting that Space-Based Solar Power will make the future so bright, we’ll all need shades! Click .

Their giant, 1-gigawatt space power station will eventually have photovoltaic panels that span about 4 square kilometers. During the next few years, the team will focus on technology development for wireless transmission of electricity via microwaves. By 2015 — the anticipated opening of the next Maslow Window — JAXA plans to launch a satellite with solar panels and test the concept of power beaming into the atmosphere. “The government hopes to have the solar station fully operational in the 2030s.”

In both its timing and scale, Japan’s space-based solar power (SBSP) initiative is an impressive macro-engineering project (MEP) that practically screams, “The next Maslow Window is just around the corner!” Their project bespeaks the kind of extraordinary ebullience and technological vision that — over the last 200+ years — are rarely witnessed outside a Maslow Window.

It’s interesting to compare the timing of Japan’s new initiative with the energy-related forecasts of Stratfor’s George Friedman in The Next Hundred Years (2009). Friedman sees a bright future for SBSP, especially in the military realm:

The American obsession with space will intersect another intensifying problem: energy … NASA has been involved in research on space-based energy since the 1970s, in the form of space solar power … Vast numbers of photovoltaic cells … will be placed in geostationary orbit or on the surface of the Moon. The electricity will be converted to microwaves and transmitted to Earth …

And in the space-based energy project of the 2060s, it will become a feature of everyday life.

So Friedman sees gigawatt-level space-based solar power being developed in the 2060s — the decade just prior to the late 21st Century Maslow Window that theoretically opens near 2071. That’s certainly possible but it sounds a little pessimistic to me. I think it’s more likely that the growing global demand for clean energy, and our increasing experience with complex ISS-style operations in space, will drive SBSP development during the 2015 Maslow Window, as exemplified by Japan’s initiative.

My main concern with the timing of Japan’s Space Energy Initiative is it’s duration: It’s a 30 year program. Successfully executing any multi-decade, multi-billion USD space program is always dicey. This is because Maslow Windows rarely persist longer than a decade and the recent trend is toward shorter, not longer. Unless the inevitable early 1970s-style economic and social decline — i.e., the decay of ebullience — characteristic of the end of a Maslow Window is specifically included in program planning, the lesson of the last 200 years is that it will undermine the program. Just ask, for example, the astronauts chosen for the early 1970s Moon missions, Apollo 18 – 20. (They were canceled.)

In late 2007 the U.S. National Security Space Office (NSSO) released an enthusiastic report on Space-based solar power primarily in the context of strategic security. They conclude that Space-Based Solar Power…

is more technically executable than ever before and current technological vectors promise to further improve its viability…For the DoD specifically, beamed energy from space in quantities greater than 5 MW has the potential to be a disruptive game changer on the battlefield … there is enormous potential for energy security, economic development, advancement of general space-faring, improved environmental stewardship…for those nations (with SBSP).

According to NSSO, the issues for SBSP include Earth-to-orbit costs and the capability for large-scale operations in space, which will also challenge Japan’s space energy system. Since 1968, the U.S. has spent only $ 80 M on SBSP technology studies compared to, for example, about $ 21 B in fusion energy research since the 1950s.

Japan’s new space energy initiative provides a intriguing preview of the 2015 Maslow Window and the likely scale of its MEPs. Based on its timing and estimated cost, as well as technology development patterns near Maslow Windows over the last 200 years, I interpret Japan’s SBSP program as a secondary MEP that will develop during the 2015 Maslow Window. It’s similar in timing and relative scale with the Titanic ship, another secondary MEP (vs the primary MEP, the Panama Canal) that occurred during the Peary/Panama Maslow Window. Japan’s SBSP is also reminiscent of another secondary MEP — the Large Hadron Collider — except that LHC is a pre-Window project.

Given this framework, and using primary-to-secondary MEP cost ratios from previous Maslow Windows (back to the Dr. Livingstone/Suez Maslow Window) it’s possible to use the cost of Japan’s SBSP initiative to estimate the expense of the primary MEP (currently unknown in detail) for the 2015 Maslow Window. Cost ratios vary from 50 to 200 over the last 150 years, so a $21 B price tag for Japan’s project suggests primary MEP costs should range from $ 1 T to 4 T (current USD). This is similar to my earlier estimates from direct cost extrapolations into the 21st Century and cost ratios from other MEPs.

Special thanks to one of my readers who heard Dr. Kaplan on the radio describing his book and thought it sounded like a Maslow Window.

If I were to recommend 3 well-researched books that wonderfully share the flavor of the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window, I would choose these:
1) All You Need is Love — The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s (1998), by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, a historian at San Diego State University,

2) 1973 Nervous Breakdown — Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of the Post-Sixties America (2006), by Andreas Killen, a historian from City College of New York, and

3) the most recent one, 1959 — The Year Everything Changed (2009) by Fred Kaplan, a columnist for Slate magazine with expertise in geopolitical issues and pop culture, as well as a PhD in political science from MIT.

Fred Kaplan’s new book, 1959 — The Year Everything Changed, is a preview of coming attractions for the new Space Age arriving near 2015. Click .

I’ve had the pleasure of commenting on how Professor Hoffman’s book captures the idealistic, transformative essence of the early 1960s zeitgeist with “Make Love, Not War”, “The belief in humanity’s inherent need for great meanings…”, “all of the Peace Corps is an act of faith…”, and “For the first time in human history, a majority of people … could have all of their needs and most of their desires met on demand.” Without even mentioning the Apollo Moon program she brilliantly evokes the feeling of 1960s ebullience! On the other side of the coin is Professor Killen’s book describing America’s “nervous breakdown” as the 1960s Maslow Window slammed shut — the title says it all. I will soon share a sampling of Killen’s profound and sobering insights in another post.

However, Dr. Kaplan’s book describes how the ebullience of the most recent Maslow Window began in the late 1950s. Of course it was “the year that everything changed.” If you haven’t read this book, you should get it.

According to Kaplan,

1959 was the year when the shockwaves of the new ripped the seams of daily life, when humanity stepped into the cosmos and also comandeered the conception of human life, when the world shrank but the knowledge needed to thrive in it expanded exponentially, when outsiders became insiders, when categories were crossed and taboos were trampled, when everything was changing and everyone knew it — when the world as we know it began to take form.

Wow! I was just a little kid then and that’s the way it felt, although I didn’t understand much of it until later. Remember that 1959 was the year that the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window splashed open and changed history. And, that 1959 is akin to 2015 — i.e., 1959 plus one 56 year long wave –when we can expect similar rapidly-paced social and technological upheavals.

Speaking of fast-paced, 1959 was the year of:

…the microchip, the birth-control pill, the space race, and the computer revolution; the rise of Pop art, free jazz, “sick comics”, the New journalism, and indie films; the emergence of Castro, Malcolm X, and personal superpower diplomacy; the beginnings of Motown, Happenings, and the Generation Gap — all bursting against the backdrop of the Cold War, the fall-out shelter craze, and the first American casualties of the war in Vietnam.

As we approach the “new 1959″ (coming near 2015), the analogous stream that Kaplan’s list triggered in me includes: transhumanist technology, expanding cable news, the blogosphere culture, extra-solar planets, new Castro-like figures, a possible new Cold War, and asymmetric terror-related wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…not to mention the new international space race!

And as Kaplan sketches below the 1960s frontier of JFK and Camelot, we can begin to envision the outlines of our new frontier (of the 2015 Maslow Window) taking shape now, nearly one long wave after 1959…

And tomorrow promised to be not just another day but a new dawn. The era’s rising young political star, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, would run for president on a slogan of “Leadership for the ’60s” — the first time that the future was defined in terms of a decade … (of) great change. Kennedy presented himself as a man … keen to explore “the New Frontier.”

The phrase was a reference to Frederick Jackson Turner’s classic essay of 1893, “The Frontier in American History,” which argued that the “American character” … was a product of the frontier’s vast emptiness, with its prospect of a continuous “expansion westward,” each step siring “new opportunities ” for conquest, settlement, and “perennial rebirth.”

By the 1950s, this frontier had long been filled and settled. The new frontier now lay in outer space, and its prospect of seemingly infinite expansion set off a new wave — a new way of seeing and experiencing on Earth.

The space program itself … spurred scientists to develop new technologies — most notably the microchip and faster, smaller computers — which would transform the fantasies of science fiction into the routines of daily life.”

I really like Kaplan’s book; it put me into “flow” where several hours passed without my noticing. Kaplan’s 1959… reminds me of what the 2015 Maslow Window will feel like.

Keep in mind that Turner’s essay on the American frontier was written in 1893, the same year as the famous financial panic that triggered a deep recession throughout the 1890s. But by 1899 prosperity began to return which triggered the extraordinary boom of probably the most ebullient decade in U.S. history — the Peary/Panama Maslow Window led by Teddy Roosevelt.

Based on the macroeconomic data and historical trends of the last 200 years, our projections for the 2015 Maslow Window suggest it will dwarf the 1960s!

The World Future Society’s journal The Futurist (Jan-Feb, 2009; David Gelles) highlights an intriguing analysis of Silicon Valley’s attraction to physical immortality. The people involved call themselves transhumanists which involves “part science, part faith, and part philosophy,” but their focus is “radical life extension and life expansion.”

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a world-class anti-aging champion, is head of the Methuselah Foundation. Click .

Some believers envision using biotechnology to reach ages near 1000 years, or “freezing the terminally ill…” using cryonics, in hopes of “…a second opinion from a future doctor,” and ultimately even uploading a human mind onto a computer. Drivers of this ebullient movement include the Who’s Who of Silicon Valley; e.g., dot-com millionaires like Peter Thiel (co-founder and former CEO of PayPal), technologist Ray Kurzweil (prolific inventer and Chancellor/Founder of Singularity University), and biologist Aubrey de Grey (Cambridge Univ PhD and head of the Methuselah Foundation).

Here at 21stCenturyWaves.com, Silicon Valley transhumanism piques our interest because it points to the growth of early ebullient thinking expected to be a key driver of the 2015 Maslow Window.

Over the last 200+ years, widespread ebullience has been at the core of fleeting and rare, but spectacular decades that we call Maslow Windows. Rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms trigger transformative clusters of Great Explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and even major wars (e.g., WW I). For a few brief shining moments, many ebullient members of society are catapulted to higher levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy where their expanded world views make great explorations and massive MEPs seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible. Other ebullient individuals — who for personal reasons, do not ascend to elevated levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy — sometimes become involved in destructive pursuits, including major wars.

However, the key is ebullience — an intensely positive, almost giddy, feeling of confidence in the future — that drives Maslow Windows like the 1960s Apollo Moon program and the Lewis and Clark explorations over 200 years ago. The next one is expected near 2015, and the early ebullience of Silicon Valley transhumanism suggests it will be on time.

Interest in immortality was generated during the early stages of the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window by physicist Robert Ettinger’s 1962 book, The Prospect of Immortality. Ettinger asserted that “if a body were frozen shortly after death, future technologies would be able to revive the recently deceased.” Ten years later, as the Apollo Maslow Window was closing, Ettinger brought transhumanism into focus by suggesting that “rather than relying on cryonics to revive the dead, forthcoming technologies might make death obsolete.”

Whatever questions you may have about the people and/or the technologies, this is truly the essence of 1960s Camelot-style ebullience!

After the 1960s Maslow Window, nearly 200 bodies were frigidly ensconced in the Arizona vaults of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. For a time Walt Disney was rumored to be among the elite 200 but he’s apparently buried in Forest Lawn Glendale near Los Angeles, not far from Michael Jackson’s new final resting place.

After the 1960s Maslow Window slammed shut, ebullience faded right on schedule as the long wave descended during the 1970s, 80s and into the 90s as “futurism gave way to materialism.” About the time of the Internet bubble burst (circa 2002) the famous Extropy Institute closed although scattered online discussions of transhumanism persisted.

During the early approach the 2015 Maslow Window, Alcor’s business was resurrected with over 800 ebullient members signing on to be frozen at death (and hopefully revived in the future), as the Silicon Valley became the “Galactic Center” for transhumanism, with several groups — e.g., Foresight Nanotech Institute, The Singularity Institute, the Immortality Institute — vying for prominence.

Today’s transhumanists see “the body as a machine, and the brain as a computer.” In a stunning display of ebullient techno-optimism, they believe that a Moore’s Law for medical technology will enable us to “fix, improve, and upgrade ourselves… (and) change the world.” And according to the popularizer of the most popular transhumanist concept — The Singularity — Ray Kurzweil explains that it is “a future period when the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.”

The Transhumanists’ impressive early ebullience today virtually guarantees that the 2015 Maslow Window is right around the corner!

But even Kurzweil admits that The Singularity could ruin our entire afternoon if, for example, rogue nano-machines were to “disassemble everything on Earth…(or a) Cyborg army might decide to wipe out the human race.” And even Theil, a major transhumanist benefactor admits, “There’s always this big question about how much of this is too bizarre to be affiliated with.”

Others are more direct. For example, Johns Hopkins political scientist Francis Fukuyama labeled transhumanism “The world’s most dangerous idea…(because) the first victim of transhumanism might be equality.” Fearing a “new, high-tech eugenics,” Richard Haynes of the Oakland-based Center for Genetics and Society asks, “At what point do we start thinking of each other as humans and subhumans…Or humans and transhumans? And some wonder if there isn’t something sad about the incessant focus on avoidance of death in a Universe where “Life is a mystery and death is part of life.” It’s reminiscent of the first stage in Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ well-known “Five Stages of Grief“: denial.

However, all this may soon be beside the point. Indeed near 2015, when the next Maslow Window is expected to open, these issues will recede from our purview, because if the last 200 years are any guide, between about 2015 and 2025 we’ll be … simply … ebullient.

And for a brief few moments, like the transhumanists of today and the Maslow Window residents of the last 200 years, we’ll believe that almost anything is possible.

Some folks hope to jumpstart human expansion into the cosmos by privately funding bases on other worlds. One serious approach is by Dr. Charles Polk who recently founded The Martian Trust (J. British Interplanetary Soc., Vol. 62, No. 5, pp. 187-197, May, 2009) with the sole intent of financing a self-sustaining outpost on Mars.

The Martian Trust, a new INGO founded by Charles Polk, bills itself as “The Virtual Society Building A Real World.” Click .

Polk has a PhD in economics from Caltech and is a former aerospace engineer who worked on Space Shuttle main engines. Frustration with the funding processes of public space programs led to his interest in economics. According to Polk,

The Martian Trust introduces a key principle to space exploration: An endeavor is best accomplished when it is conducted directly between people who can and want to buy it and people who can and want to sell it. I believe that there are tens of millions of people who will want to imagine, design, and finance, a Mars outpost through the processes of The Martian Trust. These people, these millions of patrons, with a hugh trust fund under their direction, will command the interest of industries capable of selling them a Mars outpost.

In case you’re new to this blog, The Martian Trust is a superb example of what we call “early ebullience.” Early because Polk’s visionary concept precedes the 2015 Maslow Window — the next major pulse of ebullient human expansion into the cosmos — by about 6 years, and ebullience because it marvelously symbolises the fundamental force — energized and focused human curiosity — driving near-term space colonization. Inspirational endeavors like The Martian Trust are exactly what we would expect to see as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, an ebullient 1960s-style decade with a Camelot-like zeitgeist.

Currently, space-themed media including movies, TV programs, novels, and games, reach hundreds of millions of consumers but have no direct connection — neither the consumers nor the creators — with a real space program. Polk intends to change this. His international non-governmental organization (INGO), will focus on the Mars outpost goal, “The precise meaning of this goal and how to attain it are left to those who hold stakes in the INGO. Stakes are allotted based on the revenue supplied to a trust fund, which may come from two sources: donations and media businesses.” Polk is basically adopting and expanding the media revenue model of The National Geographic Society.

Even if The Martian Trust cannot ultimately generate the tens of billions of USD needed for an initial Martian outpost, it still might play an important role by financing one or more key systems (e.g., habitation modules) in a much larger international, governmental Mars initiative. This is what Otto Steinbronn and I were envisioning in the INTELSAT-style organization that we called InterMoon (or InterMars, depending on the destination); see P. 291, Figure 3 in “Interspace…”; Space Policy, Nov., 1992.

In winter of 2008, Dr. Polk formed a non-profit corporation in Washington state to initiate the development of The Martian Trust and validate its business model. The Trust’s motto is “The Virtual Society building a Real World.” To avoid any suspicions that The Martian Trust was formed to promote any particular aerospace industry or any specific country’s economic aspirations, Polk chose to base the INGO in New Zealand. Formal establishment of The Martian Trust in New Zealand awaits the concurrence of “high net-worth space exploration and science fiction enthusiasts” who will form the INGO’s cornerstone of patrons.

This is an updated end-of-August 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 August, 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 9/1/09

I. AUGUST — Readers’ Favorites

1) Was the 1960s Apollo Moon Program an Anomaly? — 2/03/09
2) South Korea — Preparing for the New Global Space Race — 8/03/09
3) State of the Wave – Obama is Not LBJ; New Space Age Will Bloom — 8/29/09
4) Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts — 10/20/08
5) 10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09

II. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites

1) Was the 1960s Apollo Moon Program an Anomaly? — 2/03/09
2) State of the Wave – Obama is Not LBJ; New Space Age Will Bloom — 8/29/09
3) Kepler, Carl Sagan, and the Guzman Prize — Our Century-Long Search for Space Aliens — 8/23/09
4) Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts — 10/20/08
5) Xunantunich and the Large Hadron Collider Support Maslow Window Forecasts — 8/21/09