This is a recent sample of the interesting ways 21stCenturyWaves.com is being portrayed on the web. Apologies if I couldn’t mention you this time.

Thanks to everyone who’s visited 21stCenturyWaves.com in 2010 and Happy New Year!.

NextBigFuture.com
Thanks very much to Joseph Friedlander for his interesting perspective on the fundamental concepts of: 21stCenturyWaves.com

A CuriousGuy.blogspot.com
Thanks to Chuck Black for listing us on his blogroll and for featuring:
Californians Reveal the Secret of the Future

Life at the Frontier
Thanks to Joe for listing us on his blogroll and for his interesting introduction of:
21stCenturyWaves.com

Космическая программа КНДР
In a Russian Wikipedia article on “Space Program of the DPRK”, thanks for referencing (#5) and linking to: North Korea’s New Space Program?

Fast-Geheim Forum fur Grenzwissenschaften
Thanks to “Weirdo, Moderator” for linking to:
Phobos — The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China!”

UFOCaseBook.com
Thanks for featuring:
State of the Wave: ETs Surge to Center Stage

The Meridiani Journal
Thanks to Paul Scott Anderson for listing us on his blogroll:
21stCenturyWaves.com

Technicolor’s Favorite Futurism Websites
Thanks to “Technicolor” — who is an 18 year-old man from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada — for listing us as one of his favs: 21stCenturyWaves.com

Portal to the Universe
Thanks for featuring:
Japan’s New Space Energy Initiative Supports Maslow Window Forecasts

Notes of an Itinerant Mendicant
Thanks to Jason for featuring an image (near the bottom) of Stanley finally meeting Dr. Livingstone from this post: 10 Lessons Dr. Livingstone (“…I presume?”) Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space.

Merry Christmas everyone! (You might also enjoy reading last year’s Christmas message.)

Forty-two years ago — on Christmas Eve in 1968 — the first humans arrived in orbit around the Moon.
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The Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders chose to celebrate by reading the first 10 verses of Genesis during their live television broadcast.

Bill Anders
“We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.”

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

After this world-altering start on the Moon, the fact that we — as a society — chose not to return during the last ~40 years (not since 1972) is impressive testimony to the power of the long economic wave in human affairs — mostly because we were unaware of it. (See: “State of the Wave: Why No One’s Been to the Moon in 40 years — How Soon We’ll Go Again“)

But current global trends indicate the wave has turned. Both long- and short-term indicators point to many future human Christmases at the Moon and beyond as the new international Space Age gains momentum after 2015.

Merry Christmas!

Bill Richardson describes current tensions on the Korean peninsula as “a tinderbox.” It’s “particularly complex and sensitive,” according to Jiang Yu of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The popular New Mexico governor asserts “There’s enormous potential for miscalculation.”

All this is 57 years — one long economic wave — after the end of the early 1950s Korean War, a proxy war where the Soviet Union and China lined up with the North Korean Communists against the U.S.-led United Nations forces in the South.

Surely the rekindling of Korean tensions one long wave after the original war is a coincidence… Or is it?
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Actually, over the last 2 1/2 years 21stCenturyWaves.com has highlighted a variety of evidence supporting my initial suggestion in 1996 (Cordell, 1996; Also 2006) that long-term trends in the economy (i.e., the long, 56-year business cycle, discovered in 1989) are the fundamental drivers of great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (World War I) that exclusively cluster together every 55-60 years, over at least the last 200+ years.

More recently, two new ideas are explored here: 1) that “Maslow Windows” — the rhythmic, twice-per-century pulses of great explorations, MEPs, and major wars — are actually brief critical states of the international economic/technology system, typically achieved through decades of self organized criticality (SOC) processes, and 2) that serious conflicts or wars are typical features of the years just before a Maslow Window or early in the Window itself.

The classic example of such a pre- or early Maslow Window conflict is the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 — early in the Apollo Maslow Window (1959-69) — when conflict over Soviet offensive missiles emplaced in Cuba almost led to a major nuclear exchange with the U.S.. Other examples include the Napoleonic Wars (Lewis and Clark Maslow Window), the Mexican war (Dr. Livingstone/Suez Maslow Window), and the Spanish-American War (Peary/Panama Maslow Window).

This model suggests the current Korean tensions — including their potential for nuclear war involving N and S Korea and possibly other nearby states (e.g., Japan) — are a harbinger of the next Maslow Window expected by 2015. Plus the seemingly irrational provocations by North Korea resulting in a “tinderbox”, “complex,” and “sensitive” situation, are actually the types of interactions we’d expect as we approach a critical Maslow state.

While it’s tempting to dismiss this model as just another scary fantasy, please be reminded that medium-size wars have already been identified as SOC phenomena by National Aademy of Sciences member Donald Turcotte and his colleagues as early as 1998.

The results we have shown indicate that world order behaves as a self-organized critical system independent of the efforts made to control and stabilize interactions between people and countries; and wars, like forest fires, are SOC processes.

Plus historian Niall Ferguson suggested recently that WW I was a product of self organized criticality.

But there’s more.

Iran is believed to be developing nuclear weapons and the missiles needed to deliver them to places like Israel and beyond. Some observers have suggested that Israel might preemptively attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. And WikiLeak cables indicate that even Saudi Arabia has encouraged the U.S. to attack Iran.

Iran’s growing nuclear capability is interpreted here as a precursor to the strong SOC conditions that will trigger the 2015 Maslow Window. And along with spiking Korean tensions, it underlines the gravity of our current, increasingly fractal, geopolitical situation.

And, or course, there’s even more: the Venezuela Missile Crisis.

The highly-regarded German daily, Die Welt. reported last month (11/25/10) that Iran — who apparently shares missile technology with North Korea — has plans to place medium-range ballistic missiles in Venezuela.

If this story is confirmed, it would constitute a true Cuban Missile Crisis-style threat, that would require a strategic response from the United States.

However, things have changed since the 1960s. Popular Mechanics (December, 2010) recently described a chilling scenario in which China is able to neutralize U.S. aircraft carriers — the basis for U.S. force projection in the Pacific and elsewhere — utilizing a new Chinese antiship ballistic missile. China’s carrier killer could conceivably preclude American naval support of Taiwan, South Korea, and other U.S. allies in the region.

Some have speculated that the recent mystery launch of an unidentified missile (it didn’t appear to be an airplane) off the Southern California coast was intended to demonstrate China’s growing antiship capabilities.

That’s the bad news.

But the good news is that even the Cuban Missile Crisis was rapidly resolved and did not delay — and indeed probably intensified — the 1960s space race to the Moon. The same is true of all other pre- or early Maslow Window conflicts over the last 200+ years.

Growing international interests in lunar development, space commercialization (including space toruism), and even Mars colonization, might stimulate the development of a Grand Alliance for Space. With a little luck, it could reduce the intensity of current conflicts that show evidence of increasing, long wave-related SOC in the world system.

NOTE: Please check out the following Comment for more on why a major war or nuclear conflict is unlikely in the next 10-15 years.

All this talk about “Sputnik Moments” may seem very historical — in the most obscure sense of the word — to Millennials and others who didn’t actually live it.

For example, even Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein recently criticized Obama’s insightful allusion to Sputnik by claiming that…

Most people under 40 have no idea what Sputnik is. It’s an un-innovative way to talk about innovation.

Fifty-three years ago the surprise Soviet launch of “one small ball” became the “shock of the century” and instantly transformed U.S. education.
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Some historical perspective on Sputnik is sketched HERE, but before we focus on that, let’s describe China’s great accomplishment. Almost exactly one long wave after Sputnik, according to Chester Finn of Stanford’s Hoover Institution (Wall Street Journal, 12/8/10),

The United States was once again in “the middle of the pack.”

It’s hard to imagine how distraught Americans were about Sputnik in 1957, but as I wrote 2 years ago in Math and Science Education Perspectives,

Only 10 days after Sputnik the New York Times identified U.S. education as the problem, because Soviet science students were better motivated and given more prestige. Scholastic Magazine chimed in by announcing a “classroom Cold War” with the Soviets. Indeed, within a few months a Gallup poll reported that 70% of respondents believed that U.S. high school students should become more educationally competitive with their Soviet counterparts!

It’s a key forecast of 21stCenturyWaves.com that major elements of this Sputnik-related history are likely to repeat.

As we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, legitimate public concerns about the state of education will skyrocket because of anxiety over America’s ability to compete with the rest of the world in space and technology. And it’s already begun.

See #3 in: “DecaState of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for the Decade 2010-2020″.”

Finn doesn’t see this quantum leap in China’s educational performance as a fluke at all. Indeed, he feels China will be able to replicate it with “10 cities in 2019 and 50 in 2050. Or maybe faster.”

China has delivered a Sputnik-style wake-up call to “those who think American schools are globally competitive.”

We must face the fact that China is bent on surpassing us, and everyone else, in education.

Does President Obama read 21stCenturyWaves? Should we appoint him as an Honorary Contributing Editor?

Well, based on his major theme today — encouraging Americans toward a new “Sputnik moment” — at the North Carolina Research Triangle, it’s possible.

Today President Obama used the lessons of Sputnik to point to the 2015 Maslow Window.
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Referring to the surprise Soviet launch in 1957 of Sputnik — the first artificial Earth satellite — that shocked the world and triggered the 1960s Space Age, Mr. Obama asserted

That was a wakeup call. Once we put our minds to it, once we got focused, once we got unified, not only did we surpass the Soviets — we developed new American technologies, industries, and jobs.

Although the President apparently gets it, FoxNews.com (12/6/10) is lost…

President Obama is trying to inspire America’s next technological wave by referring back to a 50-year-old achievement by a defunct nation — Sputnik.

Even some Democrats shun Sputnik. According to Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein,

“Most people under 40 have no idea what Sputnik is,” Gerstein said. “It’s an un-innovative way to talk about innovation.

Maybe to some short-term thinkers, it seems unstylish, old, and defunct, and maybe the internet and Facebook have more contemporary sex appeal … but Sputnik is the key to understanding our future.

Sputnik opened the last truly transformative decade. For the first time in human history a man left the Earth and walked on another world. The stunning virtues of democracy and free markets were demonstrated and became clear to all. The Kennedy Boom — up to that time the greatest economic expansion in history — “lifted all boats” and triggered JFK’s Camelot zeitgeist.

According to the editors of the academic journal, The Sixties,

No recent decade has been so powerfully transformative in much of the world as have the Sixties.” (The 1960s decade) has become plainly iconic … It continues to not only define us but remains urgently with us.

So Obama was right to appeal to Sputnik’s compelling symbolism.

Maybe more right than he realizes, because while Sputnik opened the last truly transformative decade, it wasn’t the first, by any means.

Every 55-60 years — over the last 200+ years — there is a Sputnik/Apollo/JFK-style decade, featuring extraordinary clusters of great explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and sadly, major wars (World War I).

These “Maslow Windows” are driven by major economic booms associated with a long business cycle discovered in 1989 that’s documented back almost 200 years, and is correlated with the Strauss and Howe generational cycles. In response to increasing affluence, many ebulliently ascend Maslow’s hierarchy where their momentarily expanded worldviews make great explorations and MEPs seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible.

Long wave timing points to 2015 for the next 1960s-style Maslow Window, a golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology.

But there is one key difference between Sputnik and today.

Republican strategist Pete Snyder points out that — in contrast to the prosperous post-WW II expansion and the 1960s Kennedy Boom — the financial Panic of 2008 and overwhelming security threats have definitely gotten everyone’s attention in recent years. In response to Obama, he asks

We need something else to wake us up?

While Snyder’s facts are correct, he exposes not a weakness in Obama’s call-to-action, but an amazing strength.

The Panic of 2008 signaled a return to a familiar, multi-century pattern: financial panic/great recession pairs that — within 6 to 8 years — lead to a great economic boom which ignites the next Maslow Window.

Based on macroeconomic patterns of the last 200+ years and current global trends, this is how Obama’s message of today will likely materialize by 2015.

** Special Thanks to Contributing Editor Olivia Wolfe who suggested this topic. **

What Makes a Planet “Earth-like”? Are there really billions of Earth-like planets strewn across the Galaxy?
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These are challenging scientific questions, but my real concern here is the pop culture use of the term “Earth-like,” especially by the media and bloggers, and its potential confusing effect on the public.

Late last month an international 10-person group of planet hunters led by Andrew Howard of UC Berkeley announced in Science (Vol. 330, 29 October, 2010) magazine that about 23% of Sun-like stars in our Galaxy probably have “Earth-mass” planets in close orbits (<50 day orbits). And they speculated that Earth-mass planets at 1 AU (one Earth-Sun distance in a 365 day orbit) should be even more abundant.

Because it’s an exciting discovery it got major, well-deserved attention. The headlines included: “Galaxy Rich in Earth-Like Planets” … and CNN says “Galaxy may be full of ‘Earths,’ alien life” … “The galaxy (probably) abounds in Earth-like planets” … and the BBC quotes scientists who assert “there could be a billion Earth-like planets in our own galaxy…

Wow!

While there is reason to believe that planets with some similarities to Earth may exist in the nearby Cosmos, the headlines are — shall we say — misleading.

This is important because, to the public, the two most enticing drivers of human expansion into the Cosmos during the approaching new International Space Age are: 1) Earth-like worlds, and 2) extraterrestrial life, especially with intelligence.

So it’s important to clarify what we know at this point, and most importantly, what is meant by an “Earth-like” planet.

Is One Earth-Mass Enough?
The answer is no. Just having one Earth mass does not make an Earth-like planet, because the Earth is a very complex, only party understood body, as we’ll sketch more below. To Howard et al.’s credit, in their article’s abstract, they begin by speaking of “how common Earth-like planets are” and subsequently refer to “close-in Earth-mass planet(s).” Really two quite different things. And fortunately, the expression “Earth-like” is not used again.

However, it’s not clear how many journalists or casual readers will notice the distinction, because it’s not the point of the article and is not explained.

The previous headlines suggest not many.

Is One Earth Mass at One AU Enough?
Again the answer is probably not, although it should give you surface liquid oceans and plate tectonics.

Ten years ago Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee explained why plate tectonics is essential to habitability in Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. In addition to promoting global “environmental complexity,” subduction-related volcanism recycles CO2 back into the atmosphere maintaining above-freezing surface temperatures so abundant liquid water can exist.

But even plate tectonics probably isn’t enough to guarantee Earth-like.

For example, the Moon acts as an essential gravitational anchor to Earth’s axial tilt. Without our Moon, the axial tilt would experience chaotic swings between 0 and almost 90 degrees — as the other terrestrial planets apparently have — which would cause extreme climate variations.

We owe our present climate stability to an exceptional event: the presence of the Moon.

Climate stability and habitability are also influenced by impact rates throughout Earth’s history, and Jupiter — with its 300+ Earth masses — has played a major role. Recent results of Horner and Jones (International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 9) have confirmed earlier results from the 1990s that Jupiter significantly reduces the Earth impact probability of Oort Cloud comets, although its effects on asteroids and short-period comets appear mixed.

What Can We Realistically Say Now About Earth-Like Planets in the Galaxy?
According to NASA’s numbers, “smaller planets outnumber larger ones.” But their data only goes down to 3 Earth masses; anything smaller than that can’t yet be detected. So they have to do a mass extrapolation, and that’s where the 23% number of Sun-like stars with Earth-mass planets in close orbits (<50 days) comes from. However, their extrapolation is based on a 2008 study of Jupiter-style planets around Sun-like stars that they apply to much smaller Earth-like planets, which they admit “probably differ.”

But Earth-mass planets in close orbits (well inside Mercury) cannot be Earth-like, so we need another extrapolation — this time based on distance. Using the same 2008 study for Jupiter-style planets we can also estimate the occurrence of Earth-mass planets at 1 AU: I get 38% of Sun-like stars with Earth-mass planets at 1 AU, although the fraction could be larger.

While both extrapolations are uncertain, the second one was mentioned only speculatively in the Howard et al. article — although “billions” came out in the media. Caution is also suggested by their admission that planetary formation models predict a “planet desert” in close orbits due to rapid inward migration of Jupiter-size planets and their gravitational interactions with inner planets. While the planet desert is inconsistent with close orbit planets, it may be correct farther out near 1 AU. This is still an area of active research.

A Few Summary Questions:
1) Are there billions of Earth-like planets in our Galaxy where you could live like you do here? Currently, given the complexity of Earth systems, we have no reason to believe that; all we know of is one.

2) Are there billions of Earth-mass planets in close orbits (or at 1 AU) around Sun-like stars in the Galaxy?
To the ebullient planet hunters the answer is ‘Yes’. But this is clearly an opinion that awaits observational confirmation.
and
3) Are lots of Earth-mass (but not Earth-like) worlds, even without complex forms of life, still good news for us? Obviously yes, as we begin the colonization of space during the coming Maslow Window. It’s an ebullient, Star Trek-like vision to imagine numerous, untouched, Earth-mass worlds — some even at the right stellar distance — patiently awaiting us later in this century and beyond.

In reality, large numbers of Earth-mass planets, but only a few truly Earth-like worlds, are what we would expect from Ward and Brownlee’s Rare Earth Hypothesis. And it would explain our preliminary observation that “complex life is uncommon in the Universe.”

This is an updated end-of-November 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 November, 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 12/1/2010

I. NOVEMBER — Readers’ Favorites

1) The Moon is Not Enough…! — 11/22/08
2) 10 Lessons the Panama Canal Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space — 5/18/09
3) State of the Wave — Today’s Gloom & Doom and the 2015 Boom — 8/29/10
4) Historic Wave Election Supports 21stCenturyWaves.com Forecasts — 11/06/10
5) Phobos: The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China! — 3/27/10

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) The Moon is Not Enough…! — 11/22/08
3) The Allure of Moving to Mars Points to the New Space Age — 10/30/10
4) Phobos: The Key to the Cosmos? Just Ask Russia and China! — 3/27/10
5) North Korea’s New Space Program? — 2/08/09