Recently a good friend of mine — a member of the great Apollo generation, those who actually used their engineering, scientific, and management expertise to send us to the Moon — was lamenting the current dormant state and uncertan future of the U.S. space program, and asking how we can change this.

His bottom line was, “What needs to be done?”
(This post is my slightly altered response.)

These same issues came up in Freeman Dyson’s talk at ISDC 2010 recently. What we should do is keep working and be patient. But we won’t have to wait much longer…!

Here’s the way space really works …

Global space advocates — Young and Old — You make space work …
And this BOOM’s for You!

Click

Big Apollo-style programs (e.g., the Panama Canal) come in cycles. To develop political support for them requires many people in society to feel like they’re “getting ahead”, and that requires a John F. Kennedy-style economic boom which “lifts all boats.”

1) The reason no one’s been back to the Moon in 40 years is simple: There hasn’t been a Kennedy-style boom since the 1960s …
Click: Why 40 years?

2) Complexity theory gives us insight into the punctuated equilibrium character of great explorations from Apollo all the way back to Lewis and Clark … and to sketch the future …
Click: Space – The Fractal Frontier

3) I think the new international Space Age is almost upon us (within 3-5 yrs). And part of the reason is, ironically, the financial Panic of 2008 and our current great recession …
Click: 10 Space Trends

4) I first experimented with some of these ideas in Space Policy in 1996 but didn’t really get interested in it until, of all things, NATO had an international conference in Portugal in 2005 on how long-term economic trends might be influencing warfare and global security. And in my talks to all kinds of audiences over the last several years, my experience is that if you can actually personally remember the 1960s it will probably be easier to grasp than if you’re younger.

But in fact, given current trends, young people — especially if you were born before 2000 — are in for a wonderful cosmic ride. 
Click: Young people and their new Space Age

Last week well-known futurist Bill Halal, founder of TechCast, emailed me that they are forecasting an economic boom in 2015. TechCast runs a continuous online Delphi Poll with numerous experts in a variety of key areas. He knew I’d be interested because 21stCenturyWaves.com also sees one then.

Our prediction is fundamentally based on spectacular societal pulses of activity (“Maslow Windows“) composed of great explorations, macro engineering projects, and major wars. They appear fundamentally driven by rhythmic, twice-per-century 1960s-style economic booms, over the last 200+ years. The last one began in the late 1950s with the Apollo Moon program, which, given a long wave of about 56 years, pointed to 2015 as the opening of the new international Space Age. Indeed, nearly 15 years ago in Space Policy, I forecasted that “the decade from 2015 to 2025 will be the analog of the 1960s …” (Cordell, 1996).

Does the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 — including Charles Ferris’ original wheel — actually point to a major boom by 2015? (Or is this just “circular” reasoning? )
Click .

More recently — since the NATO Advanced Workshop on Kondratieff Waves, Warfare, and World Security held in Portugal in 2005 — and especially since the crisis in September, 2008, we’ve identified a number of diverse trends that support a major economic boom beginning in 2015. A few of these are: 1) the financial panic of 2008 itself and its great recession, 2) growth of large non-space macro engineering projects, 3) accelerating global interest in exploration and development of the Moon, 4) excitement about new commercial suborbital space opportunities, and –perhaps most surprisingly — 5) stunning historical parallels that indicate the economic and political trends of ~100 years ago may be relevant to today.

Brief Philosophical Pause: It’s appropriate here to remind readers that 21stCenturyWaves.com uses an empirical, long-term approach to project what we think will happen, not necessarily what we want to occur. This is especially important in topics like this post that contain large political and economic content.

The World Columbian Exposition of 1893 was Ebullient
Life-long Chicago-area resident Mary Kulberg first alerted me to the extraordinary World Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, that celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in America.

This was a world-class, watershed cultural event. It featured 200 new buildings of classical architecture that were visited for 6 months by over 27 million people. Highlights included the memorable “White City” and even Charles Ferris’ original 264 foot high Ferris Wheel with 36 cars, each of which held 60 people!

Most importantly, the Fair became a symbol of the growing feeling of American Exceptionalism. And it is impressive evidence for growing “ebullience” in 1893 — within a decade of the spectacular Peary/Panama/T. Roosevelt Maslow Window.

By comparison with today, significant evidence for an ebullient approach to the anticipated 2015 Maslow window is what, on July 12, 2007, Fortune Magazine called “the greatest economic boom ever.”

The Panic of 1893 Led to Prosperity
The bankruptcy of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad on February 23, 1893 signaled the beginning of the Panic of 1893. It’s analogous to Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 that marked the onset of the Panic of 2008.

The Panic of 1893 began about 6 years before the extraordinary economic boom that triggered the early 20th century Maslow Window. Assuming a similar interval between the Panic of 2008 and the next Maslow WIndow, a large economic boom should appear by 2015.

1890s Unemployment Triggered “Coxey’s Army”
Although the Columbian Expo officially opened in October, 1892, people were not admitted until May 1, 1893, over 2 months after the Panic began. So, although the early effects of the 1890s great recession were severe, Expo attendance surged, much as it has at the current World Expo 2010 in Shanghai (started May 1, 2010) where attendance records are being set (~70 M expected visitors at current rate).

Nevertheless unemployment was above 10%, by current estimates, for most of the 1890s great recession. A protest march led by Jacob Coxey reached Washington, D.C. on April 30, 1894 with about 500 men. They demanded that President Grover Cleveland create jobs through public works programs.

Like Coxey’s Army, the Tea Party Movement is a national, grass-roots protest which began soon after the Panic of 2008, in February, 2009. However, Tea Party members have focused more on reducing big government, debt, and taxes, and are expected to be influential in mid-term elections this year..

Coxey’s Army didn’t die out in 1894. Another march successfully reached Washington, D.C. in 1914, shortly after the collapse of the Peary/Panama/T. Roosevelt Maslow Window and the start of World War I. One observer was L. Frank. Baum, which has led to Coxey-like interpretations of his book, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The 1890s Great Recession Caused A Political Realignment
Because the Panic of 1893 resulted in wage cuts and job losses, it contributed to major labor unrest. The Pullman strike — the first national strike in U.S. history — eventually involved 250,000 workers in 27 states; tragically much of the Fair was destroyed by fire during the strike’s peak.

President Cleveland determined that the strike was a threat to public safety and the U.S. mail and sent 12,000 U.S. Army troops to assist U.S. Marshals in breaking it. Illinois governor John Altgeld was infuriated by Cleveland’s use of federal force and managed ultimately to keep him from being renominated at the Democratic convention of 1896.

Because of Cleveland’s inability to deal with the effects of the Panic of 1893, McKinley won the presidency in 1896 and presided over the return to prosperity. In 1901 McKinley’s successor, President Theodore Roosevelt led the U.S. into perhaps its most ebullient Maslow Decade in history.

A Japanese-style Decade?
Although we see many intriguing historical parallels, it’s still not obvious how the story will play out.
For example, the 1890s Great Recession (1893-99) was a “double-dip.” Will our current recovery falter similarly?

Everyone agrees the recovery has slowed, and the signs are not good. Commerce Department reported today that the U.S. economy grew at only 2.4% annualized in the 2nd quarter, down from 3.7% in the first. According to the New York Times (7/30/10), “Many economists expect growth rates under 2 percent for the remainder of the year.” Even more ominous is a recent warning (New York Times, 7/29/10) from James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, that current policies put America at risk of “a Japanese-style deflationary outcome within the next several years.” This might eclipse the 1890s contraction.

A weakening recovery, unemployment near 10%, record deficits, etc. are dragging President Obama’s job approval ratings to the low 40′s; and Congressional approval is much lower. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recently suggested Republicans could retake the House this year. Others believe the Senate is also vulnerable. Some are even openly suggesting that Hillary Clinton will challenge Obama for the presidential nomination in 2012.

A Continuing Political Realignment?
Like its 1893 counterpart, the Panic of 2008 triggered a political realignment with the election of President Obama and Democratic supermajorities in Congress. Given current economic trends, it’s likely that Republicans will experience significant Congressional gains in November, and may continue the political realignment — but this time in their favor.

Although the presidential election of 2012 seems far away, few economists are forecasting dramatic improvements in economic growth and unemployment prior to that time. And current trends are consistent with an 1890s-style replay, including Hillary winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 2012, Obama becoming a 1-term Cleveland-like victim of the Panic of 2008, and Hillary losing to a prosperity-oriented Republican in the style of McKinley in 1896 — whose eventual successor was the ultra-ebullient Theodore Roosevelt — who would beome the leader of the 2015 Maslow Window.

Although current history is not necessarily hostage to an 1890s-style replay, one thing seems likely: the drive for prosperity in the form of a major economic boom commencing by 2015. Over the last 200+ years, this stage in the long business cycle (the “long wave”) consistently features a major economic boom that drives unprecedented, ebullient exploration and technology programs immersed in a Camelot-like zeitgeist.

President Obama’s space policy has “polarized” the space community like never before. It has resulted in three particularly interesting types of responses: strategic, commercial, and political. We’ll take a peek at all three and highlight their limitations in the context of the long-term, fundamental drivers of human expansion into the cosmos.

Are Robert Bigelow’s inflatable space modules the future in space?
Click

Former Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, Dr. John Logsdon, recently offered a Space News Commentary (6/30/10) from his new book manuscropt, John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (to appear early next year). He defends Obama’s policy, as does Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal (7/21/10), although Jenkins’ focus is more on space-related business.

Logsdon is an astute, long-term analyst of the space scene and is to be congratulated for integrating the last 50 years (almost one full long wave) in space, but unfortunately, it leads to some misconceptions. Without recognizing the full implications of the last 200 years of great human explorations and massive technology projects — back to Lewis and Clark — it’s possible to miss fundamental themes that permeate them all and point to a spectacular, near-term golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology.

Is the Impact of Apollo a net negative?

According to Logsdon,

Sending 12 astronauts to the lunar surface was a great achievement and will forever be a proud part of American history. But in my judgment, while Apollo’s impacts on subsequent U.S. human spaceflight activities have been lasting, they have been on balance negative.

Actually Apollo was a brilliant, strategic response by JFK to long-term economic and geopolitical forces that reached a critical point in 1961. Three other 1960s-style critical points (i.e., “Maslow Windows”) are separated by 55 to 60 years back to Lewis and Clark. Many current indicators — including long-term GDP trends and the Panic of 2008 — point to a new Maslow Window opening by 2015.

Apollo was aimed at beating the Russians to the Moon; it was not propelled by a long-term vision of space exploration. To meet Kennedy’s “before this decade is out” goal, NASA chose a set of hardware systems and an architecture optimized for getting to the Moon as soon as possible; these choices had unfortunate consequences.

Logsdon is exactly right about Kennedy’s Cold War space goals; they were to win the space race, not to set the stage for large-scale space colonization. So it’s really “Monday-morning quarterbacking” to complain about their “unfortunate consequences.” Given the extraordinary historical context in which Kennedy’s program was conceived, it indeed — by any fair measure –was a success.

And Jenkins believes that “NASA’s tragedy is that it never recovered from the success of Apollo.”

What happened during the 40 years after Apollo?

I recently explained this in terms of the lack of wide-spread, affluence-induced ebullience driven by rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms (e.g., the 1960s Kennedy boom). But according to Logsdon,

One way of understanding the 40 years since Apollo is by viewing the space shuttle and the international space station as attempts to preserve and take advantage of that (Apollo) infrastructure, work force and industrial base. Pursuing an “Apollo on steroids” approach to the Constellation program was an understandable sequel to those programs, once again trying to employ the heritage left by Apollo. But this, like the hardware developed for Apollo and then abandoned, is ultimately a dead-end approach.

Logsdon supports his point by quoting Yale sociologist Gary Brewer (writing 20+ years ago) who observed that

NASA during the Apollo program came close to being “a perfect place” — the best organization that human beings could create to accomplish a particular goal. But, suggested Brewer, “perfect places do not last for long.” NASA was “no longer a perfect place.” The organization needed “new ways of thinking, new people, and new means.” He added “The innocent clarity of purpose, the relatively easy and economically painless public consent, and the technical confidence [of Apollo] … are gone and will probably never occur again.

Logsdon’s and Brewer’s positions regarding new Apollo-style programs as a “dead-end approach” that “will probably never occur again,” are simply not supported by history. In fact, great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (e.g., World War I) cluster together exclusively near rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms, over the last 200 years.

Without the crucial, but straightforward insight that space exploration is closely related to great human explorations of the past (at least back to Lewis and Clark), Logsdon and Brewer miss the point about the future. But Brewer’s description of Apollo as “a perfect place” is exactly what we would expect of a fractal Maslow Window during its critical state.

Is near-term commercial, habitation, and scientific development of Earth-Moon space still in the cards?

Jenkins (WSJ, 7/21/10) worries that

Many of the New Space companies have made it thus far by consuming the fortunes of celebrity entrepreneurs … (but) That can’t go on forever …

This is especially critical because

Gone is most of the money Mr. Obama earmarked to give private entrepreneurs … The customer they have their eye on (now) isn’t NASA but hotel magnate Robert Bigelow, who has two prototype modular space habitats already in orbit but lacks affordable transport.

Surprisingly, Logsdon sees the private sector taking on “a larger role in providing transportation service for people traveling to low Earth orbit” as fundamentally “a side issue.” To him, the big enchilada is “developing capabilities for going beyond Earth orbit.”

Again historical precedent illuminates the future. Humans first went to the Moon in 1969 during the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window. And Apollo is analogous to Lewis and Clark opening up the Great Northwest during their Maslow Window ~200 years ago. But it took about 1 long wave until the transportation routes, the availability of land, and the California Gold Rush motivated many people to go there to prosper. Likewise, it took almost one long wave (~ 50 years) to develop the systems that will allow entrepreneurs to profit from sending people into space. And because going into space is even harder than California, it’s still being perfected. But the point is that Richard Branson and many others will soon profit from this new “Gold Rush” in space.

“A polarized debate unprecedented in my more than four decades of close observation of space policymaking…” according to Logsdon, who then complains several times in his short piece about how poorly the government has presented and defended the new Obama space policy, including:
1) “…an incoherent defense of the new strategy…”
2) “Obama confused the situation even further in his April 15 speech…”
3) “There is a coherent explanation of what is being proposed, but NASA has given it little emphasis…”
4) “The White House and NASA dug a rather deep hole is mismanaging the rollout of the new strategy…”

It’s been my experience that when politicians or their advocates complain about the way a key policy or strategy is officially miscommunicated, it’s usually because the policy itself is weak and/or unpopular.

What could be wrong with Obama’ s space policy? According to Logsdon,
the following didn’t help much:

announcing a quickly conceived resuscitation of Orion, blowing off the Moon as a valuable destination, and setting an ambiguous target for a heavy lift vehicle.

Couldn’t agree more and you can see more here.

Logsdon concludes that,

The greatest threat to U.S. space leadership would come from our political system insisting on staying with the Apollo-era approach to the future…

This comment misses the key historical lesson of the rhythmic pulses of great explorations and grandiose macro engineering projects (including Apollo) over the last 200 years.

In fact, it’s not “our political system” that fundamentally drove Apollo. It’s actually the laws of economics and human nature.

Over the last 2 centuries, whenever humans could indulge their raw exploration passions, they did. In the modern world, this occurs mainly during short-lived, but exceptionally ebullient Maslow Windows that are driven by unparalleled 1960s-style economic booms.

Each Maslow Window has a different focus but the 2015 Window is likely to feature new commercial activities in space, international Moon bases, space-based solar power technology developments, and possibly the first humans to Mars.

But better enjoy it while it’s here, because long wave timing indicates the following Maslow Window isn’t expected until 2071!

As we search for clues to our economic future by looking for parallels between our current great recession and the past (e.g., the 1930s), it’s logical to also seek historical parallels relating other great events that are strongly dependent on economic conditions. For example, the manned space program, and specifically, human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars.

Viewed in this context, President Obama’s recent cancellation of Constellation — America’s program to return to the Moon by 2020 — is not a big surprise. It’s just a speed bump on the road to a near-term Moon base, including international commercial and scientific development of Earth-Moon space.

This glimpse of the future is not based on hope or optimism, but on long-term trends in the economy, technology, and geopolitics which point to a near-term re-ignition of President Kennedy’s nearly 50-year old vision of human exploration of the Moon and planets.

The 1960s Apollo Moon program was the greatest combined exploration and technology event in the history of the world, because it was off-world!
Click .

If we could understand what fundamentally drove Apollo, we might glimpse our future in space. And yet, as we discovered again last July during celebrations of the Moon landing’s 40th anniversary, we still can’t agree on why Apollo moonwalking ended in 1972. For example, Right Stuff author Tom Wolfe believes “the answer is obvious. NASA had neglected to recruit a corps of philosophers,” such as Saturn V developer Wernher von Braun, to explain the real meaning of Apollo to the public. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Heavens and the Earth (1985), Walter McDougall explains that

the bold lunar goal … encouraged Congress and the nation to believe that Apollo was the space program … Once the space race was over and won, Americans could turn back to their selfish pursuits.

Formerly with CNN, Miles O’Brien dismisses the most obvious manned space challenge — cost.

If you don’t want to mention the cost of the wars, if you would rather not get into Wall Street or Detroit bailouts, or if you don’t want to tell them the money we spend on the space program is about the same as our annual expenditure on coffee — why not mention India?…Calcutta can afford it — and Cleveland can’t?

This is an important clue. Apollo cost about $ 150 B (in 2007 USD). Imagine the Apollo-level manned space programs we could have funded with only a fraction of Obama’s initial $ 800+ B stimulus package. But although the money magically appeared, Americans did not spontaneously demand Moonbases or manned Mars missions. So the availability of money, by itself, does not fundamentally drive big space programs.

Wolfe alludes to powerful. but short-lived forces permeating Apollo: “

Everybody, including Congress, was caught up in the adrenal rush of it all.

This included the quintessential media figure of the time, Walter Cronkite, who predicted that after Apollo 11, “everything else that has happened in our time is going to be an asterisk.”

And O’Brien concludes that.

Truth is, we have done nothing to equal (much less top) the accomplishments of Apollo. And even worse, we haven’t tried. We did someting truly great, but then walked away from it.

This emotional component — and its rapid demise in the late 1960s — explains why money is not enough. The people also have to feel good.

This is reminiscent of a Keynesian concept called “animal spirits,” used to explain why investors become either irrationally exhuberant or unnecessarily discouraged by business conditions during a boom or a bust. However, public support for Apollo was not primarily driven by the promise of profits from space, nor in the end, even by beating the Soviets to the Moon.

Instead the unprecedented, widespread affluence from the Kennedy boom momentarily catapulted many average citizens to elevated levels of Maslow’s hierarchy where their expanded worldviews made the Apollo program seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible — as reflected in 1960s opinion polls.

Indeed, the strong connection between manned planetary exploration and Maslow-related values was emphasized in 1961 by the National Academy of Science’s Space Science Board, chaired by Lloyd Berkner, in their influential report to President Kennedy.

Man’s exploration of the Moon and planets (is) potentially the greatest inspirational venture of this century and one in which the whole world can share; inherent here are great and fundamental philosophical and spiritual values which find a response in man’s questing spirit and his intellectual self-realization.

But the Maslow effect was short-lived. As early as 1966, growing distress over Vietnam and budget issues began to erode affluence-induced “ebullience,” and this 1960s Apollo “Maslow Window” rapidly closed, as evidenced by Nixon’s cancellation of the last three Apollo Moon missions.

As recently as Memorial Day weekend in Chicago at the International Space Development Conference 2010, distinguished physicist and space scientist Freeman Dyson lamented that “we have been stuck in LEO for 40 years.” In the context of Apollo, this is consistent with the absence — since the 1960s — of a post-World War II-style long boom culminating in widespread, Camelot-style ebullience.

We almost got one started in 2007 when Fortune magazine (7/12/07) celebrated the “greatest economic boom ever.” But it was interrupted by the financial Panic of 2008 and our subsequent great recession. Will 2007′s great boom be revived? And how soon?

Intriguing parallels with Apollo go back at least 200 years to Lewis and Clark, but the last century is particularly revealing. For example, the financial Panic of 1893 and the great 1890s recession may have more parallels with our current circumstances than the Apollo-related decades from 1950-70. The 1890s featured a double-dip recession and unemployment above 10%, as well as a political realignment that led to a stunning 1960s-style economic boom after 1899. The resulting early 20th century Maslow Window featured extraordinary ebullience, including “Panama fever” as the new canal split the continent and transformed America into a global power, “pole mania” as heroic international teams risked death to be the first to the poles, the civilization-altering Wright brothers’ first flights, and perhaps the most ebullient U.S. president ever: Theodore Roosevelt.

The trajectory of future history is not confined to a choice between the 1890-1913 Panic/recession model or the 1950-1973 Apollo example. But significantly, they both point to a golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology that’s just around the corner.

Based on the historical pattern of rhythmic, twice-per-century Maslow Windows — over the last 200 years — including the Panic/Great Recession pairs (like the Panic of 2008) that typically occur a few years before the Windows, we can expect the new international Space Age to start gaining momentum by 2015.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!

Today we celebrate the Declaration of Independence by Jefferson and his colleagues in 1776. Click .

To understand why this holiday is so important to America, please click HERE.

Today, most of the world realizes that liberty and free markets are the fastest way to prosperity. They also accelerate new technology development, which — along with prosperity and affluence-induced ebullience — fundamentally drive human expansion into the cosmos!

Have a GREAT 4th of July !!

ALSO …
…Readers’ Favorite Posts — June, 2010

This is an updated end-of-June 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 June, and II) Favorites during 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 7/1/2010

I. JUNE — Readers’ Favorites

1) Space: The Fractal Frontier — How Complexity Drives Exploration — 5/01/10
2) State of the Wave — How President Obama is Creating the New Space Age — An Update — 6/20/10
3) Why Humans Became #1 and How Technology and Sex Lead to Unprecedented Prosperity — 5/22/10
4) Phobos: The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China! — 3/27/10
5) The Moon is Not Enough…! — 11/22/08

III. THE LAST 7 DAYS — Readers’ Favorites — Readers’ Favorites

1) Space: The Fractal Frontier — How Complexity Drives Exploration — 5/01/10
2) Phobos: The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China! — 3/27/10
3) China & Russia Take the Smart Road to Mars! — 12/04/08
4) The Moon is Not Enough…! — 11/22/08
5) Will the 2011 Economic Collapse Threaten the 2015 Maslow Window — 6/08/10

For those who relied mostly on economic models, the Panic of 2008 and subsequent great recession was a shock. But for those who noticed trends in macroeconomic data — especially over the last 200 years — it was a realistic probability. Likewise, theoretical models of Earth’s climate system can’t reliably forecast the future (or even current) climate, because they don’t include the actual physics of the system.

Does declining solar activity signal the “end of global warming”?
Click

This is important because climate politics (not to be confused with climate science!) currently has the potential to significantly lower economic growth which is the fundamental driver of the new international Space Age, as well as previous Apollo-style Maslow Windows over the last 200 years.

Despite what many media and political types continue to tell us, for some time the scientific data has pointed away from CO2 as the climate culprit; an excellent summary is here. And the Sun is receiving icreasing attention because of its odd behavior and interesting history, and new science about its connections to climate.

The Sun is Changing

As of yesterday, the official webpage of chief NASA Sun forecaster David Hathaway is still sticking to its story that the next solar sunspot cycle will be only about half as active (Max= 64.1 in mid-2013) as the last 3 cycles. (Sunspot cycles last about 11 years but their intensities are highly variable.) It was only a few years ago when Dr. Hathaway warned colleagues at the American Geophysical Union meeting (12/2006) that the next solar cycle is going to be a big one. It

looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago,

You can see an amusing animation of the declining trend of Dr. Hathaway’s solar cycle predictions HERE.

Are We on Course for a Dalton Minimum or a Grand Minimum?

Times of low solar activitiy are associated with cooler temperatures on Earth. And 2008 and 2009 were in the top 3 most spotless years in the last century;
Click
A good example is the severe European winter of 2009-10, although the correlation holds at least back to 1650.

Hathaway told the New York Times last year (7/20/2009) that while a Maunder Minimum — a time from 1645 to 1715 when sunspots were almost absent associated with the Little Ice Age — is unlikely, a Dalton Minimum “lies in the realm of the possible.”

From 1790 to 1830, the Dalton Minimum featured maximum sunspot numbers near 50 (only 15 below Hathaway’s current prediction for the next cycle) and cooler temperatures on Earth. For example, the Oberlacch Station in Germany experienced a 2.0 deg C drop for twenty years, and the “Year Without a Summer” occurred in 1816.

Although still uncertain, the mechanism amplifying small changes in solar activity (see the presentation by Kirkby.CERN.2009) to produce climate change on Earth is apparently associated with galactic cosmic rays (GCR); they trigger ion-induced cloud formation and cooling on Earth’s surface. During low solar activity, magnetic fields in the solar wind are weaker and block fewer GCRs; so increased ion-induced nucleation by GCRs triggers more cloud formation in the lower atmosphere — and cooling.

In the June, 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology (Vol. 8, 1983-1999) Duhau and de Jaeger propose that the Sun will enter a “Grand Minimum” of solar activity. Like the Maunder Minimum, it will feature very low solar activity and will last for at least one century. They forecast that the current cycle (#24) will occur in mid-2013 and will have a Dalton-like max sunspot number as low as 55. Their model indicates the Grand Minimum should arrive around 2020 to 2030.

The Sun and the New Space Age

Macroeconomic data and historical trends — including the Panic of 2008 and current great recession — over the last 200+ years point to the arrival of the new international Space Age near 2015. In several ways, the Sun will encourage humans to think beyond Earth for their future.

1. As science points convincingly away from CO2 and toward other climate change factors (including the Sun/GCR connection), the rationale for major climate legislation — that would limit rapid economic growth typical of Apollo-style space programs — is reduced.

2. Opinion polls show the American public does not regard CO2-related climate change as a major threat to their lives. They appear to be far ahead of many current political leaders. The profoundly negative vision of the future described by CO2 climate advocates is inconsistent with the societal ebullience that we expect near the opening of the 2015 Maslow Window.

3. Increasing scientific and public interest in the Sun as a fascinating astronomical body with important influences on climate change is expected to accelerate as we approach the new Space Age. Things associated with extraterrestrial life and habitable planets (e.g., Mars) — including the life-giving Sun — will take center stage as we continue human expansion into the cosmos and contemplate settlement of the solar system.

4. The Sun will play an increasingly central role in our global energy future through the development of large space-based solar power satellites. This is closely related to #3 above.

5. If the Sun were to descend into a Maunder Minimum-style “Grand Minimum” between 2020 and 2030, it would be a global disaster. Keep in mind that without long-term planning we can expect long-term economic forces to abruptly terminate the 2015 Maslow Window by 2025, if not before. Having a large, routine presence in space by 2020 — including more control of solar energy — will enable human civilization to prosper through both potential threats.

The way the future works has a lot to do with the past — especially the ways that humans, resources (especially geography), and technology have interacted before.

The future’s important because it’s where we’ll spend the rest of our lives. Click .

Here at 21stCenturyWaves.com, the idea has certainly not been to try to understand how everything works.

Instead, we have focused on the following questions: 1) Why do the great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), massive macroengineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and the major wars (e.g., World War I), cluster together — over the last 200+ years — exclusively in connection with rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms (e.g., the 1960s Apollo “Maslow Window”)? and 2) What does this tell us about the future of technology and space?

Because our approach provides a new framework to illuminate both the past and future — e.g., summarized in my recent look at the next decade — it’s always exciting to compare it to macro-historical thinking by a first-rate historian like Cambridge University Professor Nicholas Boyle.

Boyle’s book, 2014 – How to Survive the Next World Crisis, appeared this week and boldly uses multi-century historical patterns to project trends in the 21st century, including 2014 being a special year (which is no surprise to devotees of the 2015 Maslow Window!).

Multi-Century Patterns in History Provide Powerful Insights

Professor Boyle’s bold use of historical events over the last 500 years as the basis for his 21st century forecasts is impressive. He starts with Martin Luther’s theses of 1517 (triggering the Reformation) and surges all the way to 1914, the start of World War I. 21stCenturyWaves.com’s forecasts spring from macroeconomic data and historical patterns — especially with regard to great explorations, MEPs, and major wars — over the last 200 years.

Considered together these quite-different approaches feature surprising parallels and expanded insights into the past as well as the future.

There will be “a great event” in 2014
Boyle’s major insight is his forecast of a “great event” in 2014; this potential crisis is based on a generational rationale and the psychology of a new century. 2014 is near the projected opening of the 2015 Maslow Window — a 1960s-style golden age of prosperity, explorationm, and technology — based on the last 200+ years. So we like his timescale.

According to Boyle,

2007 started off colossal economic change which has still got a long way to go …

My thesis is that we have got another crisis to come, and you can already see that in the questions being raised over the debts of nations …

We agree because history shows he’s right.

Every Maslow Window of the last 200 years — with the exception of the 1960s Apollo Window — was preceded within a decade by a financial panic (liike that in 2008) and a great recession like the current one. A good analog for now is the Panic of 1893 and the 1890s great recession; it was a “double-dip” recession and lasted 6 years, suggesting our current recession should end by 2014 and could be consistent with Boyle’s expectation.

Interestingly, today CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf independently supported this estimate by stating that it will take another 4 years (not before 2014) for unemployment to decline to “normal levels” of about 5%.

However Boyle’s next “crisis” might be military. Over the last 200+ years, every Maslow Window has been plagued by an early- or pre-Window war or major conflict; the last was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 that almost led to a major nuclear exchange. But the good news is that, so far, the world has managed to avoid major destruction by these early-/pre-Window threats. And in fact, most actually create momentum toward the Maslow Window itself.

In the 21st Century: Peace or war?
According to Boyle, a ‘Doomsday’ moment will take place in 2014 and “will determine whether the 21st century is full of violence and poverty or will be peaceful and prosperous.”

And history shows he’s right again — although both will probably occur.

The way the future really works is illustrated by the last 200 years. Transformative, decade-long Maslow Windows are fundamentally driven by affluence-induced ebullience that’s triggered by rhythmic, twice-per-century unparalleled economic booms.

For example, distinguished historian Eric Hobsbawm (b. 1917) describes “The Great Boom” which powered the mid-19th century Dr. Livingstone/Suez/Polk Maslow Window, as

the extraordinary economic transformation and expansion … (with) prolonged prosperity … Never did British exports grow more rapidly than in the euphoric years between 1853 and 1857…

However, the decades between Maslow WIndows feature devastating depressions and military strife as the long business cycle (the “long wave”) descends to a trough and begins its recovery over about 4+ decades. Speaking of the 20th century, Hobsbawn comments that

The decades from the outbreak of the First World War to the aftermath of the Second, was an Age of Catastrophe for this society …even intelligent conservatives would not take bets on its survival … a world economic crisis brought even the strongest capitalist economies to their knees …

In the languge of Self Organized Criticality, the international economic/geopolitical system continuously self-organizes toward a critical state (the “fractal” Maslow Window) where major changes — both good and bad — occur rapidly and often without obvious triggers. Examples include the Apollo Moon program in the 1960s and World War I during the early 20th century Maslow Window.

Between Maslow Windows, the international economic/geopolitical system elements (countries, corporations, individuals) interact weakly and typically require several decades to self-organize back into another critical state. (The next one should begin by 2015.)

The devastating “Aspirin Age” decades between Maslow Windows are not inevitable. When we learn to include the long wave in our strategic thinking and macro-planning, their extreme effects should subside.