Riveting polar expeditions of the 1903 Maslow Window resulted in the discovery of the north pole by Adm. Robert Peary (U.S.) in 1909 and the south pole by Roald Amundsen (Norway) in 1911; this “pole mania” featured daring adventure, international competition, and tragic accidents. The Peary/Amundsen Maslow Window has intriguing parallels with the 1960s Apollo Moon program and many lessons for the future human exploration and settlement of the Moon and Mars.
The top 10 lessons of Peary and Amundsen include:

10. The early 20th Century Peary/Amundsen Maslow Window (1903 - 1913) featured the spectacular achievement of Admiral Robert Peary — first credited with reaching the north pole — and the “Heroic Age” of Antarctic exploration including Roald Amundsen, discoverer of the south pole, the tragic deaths of Robert Scott and his crew, and the aborted transantarctic expedition of Ernest Shackleton… For more, click HERE.
The presence of both widespread ebullience and spectacular exploration of new geographical sites forms the core of Maslow Windows of the last 200 Years, and will likely be the zeitgeist of the 2015 Maslow Window

Amundsen and crew reach the “last place on Earth” in December, 1911. Click .

9. Antarctic exploration in 1843 by Sir James Clark Ross — discoverer of the well-known Ross Ice Shelf — was the last mid-19th Century foray into the Antarctic by explorers for more than 50 years. Polar expeditions were replaced by the central African adventures of Dr. David Livingstone as the focus of the world’s attention during his Great Exploration. The postponement of polar exploration until the early 20th Century is consistent with the general rules of thumb for Great Explorations (GEs) during the last 200 years: a) GEs are separated by 55 to 60 years, b) their sequence is from closer geographical sites to those of greater inaccessibility (e.g., central Africa vs. poles), and c) new GE sites always stimulate great public interest. And thus our next Maslow Window should arrive near 2015 and involve humans to Mars, Moon bases, or possibly both.

8. Clarence King — a 19th Century version of both Carl Sagan and Howard Hughes –was one of the greatest explorers of the American West, but because of poor long wave timing he’s not associated with a Great Exploration. During his important exploits, Americans were devastated by the Civil War and Europeans were distraught by the financial Panic of 1873… For more, click HERE.
Scentist-Explorer Clarence King is a classic example of a great explorer not having the global impact you’d expect because his discoveries occurred in the decades between Maslow Windows; these often dark decades — over the last 200 years — are inhabited by major wars and financial contractions that quickly destroy societal ebullience and make Great Explorations temporarily impossible.

7. “This is the greatest factor — the way in which the expedition is equipped — the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck,” according to the discoverer of the south pole, Roald Amundsen. In the 15 major antarctic expeditions from 8 countries during the Heroic Age, there were a total of 17 crew deaths, including Scott’s entire party of 5 while returning from the pole. Having been overcome by extreme weather and questionable strategic decisions, Scott’s ill-fated crew is reminiscent of the famous California-bound Donner party during the ebullient mid-19th Century Maslow Window, who was trapped by unusual, early snow storms in the California mountains after ill-advised voluntary delays.
Great Explorations always involve significant risks, especially in an atmosphere of international competition. Experience has shown (see Stuster, 1996) that the best way to ensure crew safety and mission success is by trying to anticipate every potentially threatening situation and taking appropriate precautions.

Monument near Donner Lake indicating the 20+ foot depth of the snow in 1846 (B. Cordell, 1999). Click donner.pdf.

6. The international conquest of Antarctica was launched in 1895 when a general resolution at the 6th International Geographical Society in London exhorted scientific societies world-wide to support antarctic exploration. This echoed a similar theme ventilated by London’s Royal Geographical Society in 1893. Between 1901 and 1917 — the “Heroic Age” — 15 expeditions to Antarctica were mounted by 8 countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, France, Japan, Norway, and Australia.
The Heroic Age of antarctic exploration proved that international cooperation can be a powerful tool for science and exploration, and suggests that it will be essential for human expansion into the cosmos.

5. The financial Panic of 1893 caused estimated unemployment over 10% for 5+ years. The crisis initially lasted only 18 months but was followed by another recession that continued into 1897. The combination of GDP declines of several % coupled with population growth meant that GDP per capita didn’t recover to 1892 levels until 1899… For more, click HERE.
The Panics of 1893 and 2008 have interesting parallels, including that they began 10 and 8 years before their Maslow Windows opened, respectively. The Panic of 1893 suggests that the 2015 Maslow Window might be delayed only briefly as the global economy recovers to its mid-2007 “greatest ever global boom” status.

The 2015 Maslow Window may still arrive on time and feature Great Explorations even greater than Peary & Amundsen and Apollo, and MEPs more amazing than even the Panama Canal. Click .

4. Unike the Lewis and Clark expedition, which opened the West to human settlers, the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration did not trigger massive human migrations to the polar regions. And while important meteorological and geographical science was done, it was the sheer adventure of polar exploration that enthralled the world… For more, click HERE.
That’s why during the 1960s Maslow Window, President Kennedy did not propose sending a mission to exploit the polar areas or anywhere else on earth, he chose to go to the Moon. It was the next obvious target that would globally demonstrate America’s technological prowess (Apollo was also an MEP), as well as revitalize education and society by activating raw human exploration passions — that have been hard-wired into us for 200,000 years.

3. “To a visitor from Mars it must have seemed that the Western world in 1914 was on the brink of Utopia,” according to historians J. Harrison and R. Sullivan (1966). Unfortunately, this pinnacle of Polar Maslow Window ebullience crashed in 1914 with the onset of World War I, the “Great War.” For more, click HERE.
The Peary/Amundsen Maslow Window is consistent with the lesson of the last 200 years: public support for Great Explorations and Macro-Engineering Projects typically vaporizes shortly after the economic boom peaks due to financial, political, and/or military factors. Maslow Windows flourish for less than a decade, and — unless we make special plans for it — the 2015 Window is unlikely to be an exception.

2. Although antarctic exploration began with an international organization in the mid-1890s, the desire to be first to the pole — i.e., pole mania — was overwhelming to some explorers. When Amundsen realized that Peary had reached the north pole in 1909, he made secret plans to be first to the south pole. For more, click HERE.
The Amundsen-Scott pole mania episode is reminiscent of the 1950s Cold War, which featured the International Geophysical Year’s plans to launch satellites into Earth orbit and resulted in the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957; Sputnik ignited the Race to Space as the Apollo Maslow Window opened. As we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, is an Amundsen/Sputnik-type surprise likely to trigger the Next Race to Space?

1. Will there be a Grand Alliance for Space? Although the Polar Maslow Window failed in that regard (See #2), it’s likely the technical and financial challenges of early 21st Century space colonization will require a globally coordinated approach. The last 200 years indicate that twice-per-century pulses of Great Explorations and Macro-Engineering Projects are likely to be the focus of global ebullience in the foreseeable future — especially in space. And AIAA’s Jerry Grey and others have even suggested a multi-decade plan for unified, global settlement of the solar system. The spectacular achievement of the $ 100 B International Space Station and current international plans for Moon exploration and bases suggest hopeful movement in the right direction.

“The prime exploratory challenge of the next fifty years is…surely to seek firm evidence for, or against, the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence,” according to Martin Rees, professor of cosmology and astrophysics at Cambridge University and Astronomer Royal; (see The Next Fifty Years, John Brockman, Ed., 2002).

Finding extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) would be a compelling long-term goal for humanity in the spirit of Bob Scaringe, who recently suggested interstellar travel (IT) to nearby stars as a way of ensuring human survival as well as motivating a multicentury, global space program. Indeed, the dynamic ETI/IT duo could stimulate a grandiose, long-term program which might even be launched during the next Maslow Window when ebullient extraterrestrial passions are likely to be high.

As of November 14, 2008 The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia lists 326 planets — mostly “hot Jupiters” — that have been discovered orbiting other stars. Current optimistic estimates are that the fraction of stars with planetary systems is between 30% and 50%, implying that there could be 50+ billion planetary systems in our Galaxy.

On Earth, humans appeared only about 200,000 years ago suggesting that billions of years might be required for ETI to appear on another planet. Because the Sun’s H-burning Main Sequence (MS) lifetime is 10 billion years, the ratio of humans’ emergence time to the Sun’s MS lifetime is about 0.5. Brandon Carter has suggested that this ratio for ETI will probably be close to 1 (did humans appear “early”?), and that ETI is unlikely in very young planetary systems.

A Dyson Sphere would prove the existence of ETI. Click .

In a provocative article in Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (February, 2008), scientist/author Martin Beech suggests that advanced civilizations near Sun-like stars would eventually engage in planetary engineering of any Mars- or Venus-like planets (e.g., Fogg, 1995) or even Dyson Spheres that could capture most of their star’s energy for use in lofty planetary-scale projects that might be detectable from Earth.

Using age estimates for 123 exoplanet-supporting stars (as of 2005), Beech plots the number of exoplanets vs. the ratio of star age to MS lifetime (a function of star mass); age ratios vary from 0 to 1.5 and the number of exoplanets for each age ratio varies from 1 to 18. Beech suggests that terraforming and Dyson sphere construction might begin as early as 0.4, interstellar migration could flourish from 0.9 to 1.1, and “sterilization” would engulf any planetary system from 1.1 onward as the star becomes a planet-killing red giant.

Beech lists 6 stars of particular interest known to be within 1% of their MS lifetime (i.e., age ratio very near 1). Although no Earth-like planets have been detected in any of these 6 ETI-optimal systems, 3 theoretically allow stable planetary orbits within their habitable zones; they are HD4308, HD190360, and 70 Virginis.

If habitable planets are discovered near these or similar stars, ebullient Earth-bound astronomers contemplating interstellar voyages will check their spectra, to see if “the lights are on” just in case any ETI’s are home.

The Apollo Maslow Window — aproximately 1959 to 1970 — was a remarkably ebullient time of Great Explorations like Apollo that were accomplished by great explorers. But not all of them went up into space, a few went down — way down.

Perhaps the most daring of them all was oceanographer Jacques Piccard who died yesterday (New York Times, 11/2/08) at 86 in his Lake Geneva, Switzerland home. On January 23, 1960 Piccard and a Navy officer (Lt. Don Walsh) took the Trieste straight down 35,813 feet into the ocean’s deepest spot — the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench — near Guam in the western Pacific. By the way, the summit of Mount Everest is “only” 29,035 feet above sea level, and commercial jets typically cruise between 30,000 and 35,000 feet, just for some perspective.

In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh took the Trieste 35,813 feet down into the Challenger Deep; the only time it’s ever been done. Click .

According to Mr. Piccard, “By far the most interesting find was the fish that came floating by our porthole. We were astounded to find higher marine life forms down there at all.” The Challenger Deep has a pressure of 17,000 psi; almost 1200 atmospheres.

As a young boy during this time I had been amazed by the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the birth of NASA and the space program shortly after, but when I heard about Piccard and the Trieste, it blew me away. Although going into space had its own dangers, somehow the idea of going 7 miles into the ocean scared me to death. The daring of Piccard and Walsh still gives me chills; it was the only human mission to the Challenger Deep ever made.

Piccard studied economics, history, and physics in college, and then taught economics at the University of Geneva while helping his physicist, aeronaut, hydronaut father develop the bathyscaphe for deep sea missions. The U.S. Navy was so impressed with the Trieste that in 1958 they bought it and hired Piccard as their consultant.

Just 2 days before the launch of Apollo 11 to the Moon in 1969, the “Ben Franklin”, also known as the Grumman/Piccard PX-15 mesoscaphe, was launched into the Gulf Stream off the coast of Palm Beach, FL. It had a crew of 6 headed by Piccard and, at a depth of 1000 feet, drifted northward 1,444 miles during more than 4 weeks. Before the mission, Wernher von Braun – father of the American space program and developer of the Saturn V launch vehicle — visited the Franklin in Palm Beach. He asked NASA scientist Chet May to go on the Franklin as a NASA observer, to study the effects of long-term isolation on the crew for possible insights into long duration space missions.

Einstein once said that God doesn’t play dice with the Universe, but Einstein had little to say about anyone playing golf on the Moon. However, Aristotle insisted that the highest human goal is “happiness,” which many associate with golf, maybe even in space. And this brings us to legendary Apollo astronaut Alan B. Shepard. (See New York Times, October 13, 2008.)

Alan Shepard on the Moon in 1971; Click .

Admiral Shepard’s unparalleled national hero credentials were secure in 1961 when he became the first American in space. He’d been chosen from the world’s best test pilots as one of NASA’s original 7 astronauts. But after being kept out of the space flight action through much of the 1960s because of an inner ear ailment (solved by surgery), he wanted to walk on the Moon.

Shepard luckily missed Apollo 13 — the mission that Tom Hanks made even more famous — because he needed more training. His crew wound up on the Apollo 14 trip to Fra Mauro, a spectacular valley about 360 km south of Copernicus crater that’s littered with ancient secrets.

Just before leaving the Moon, Shepard casually produced a 6 iron and a few golf balls and proceeded to become the first human to play golf on the Moon. He liked the idea because in 1/6 g (and no air), the balls will travel more than 6 times farther than on Earth. You can relive the historic moment…

To see Al Shepard play the first golf shot on the Moon, click HERE.

Shepard enjoyed golf, on any world. Towards the end of his life he spent most of his time at his home in Pebble Beach, CA, a golfer’s paradise. He also played pro-ams such as the Bob Hope Classic in Palm Springs, where I accidentally ran into him in the late 1980s. He lamented that “the wheels had come off” his game, but of course it didn’t matter.

Astronaut Shepard was ahead of his time. True space colonization will require us to live, work, and play during our lengthy times in space, and Shepard — in an ebullient lunar moment — wanted to teach us that. Although some considered his golf shots to be unprofessional during a Moon mission, they were actually among the most profoundly human moments of the 20th Century.

Will any future Captain Kirk ever say that for real?

In any case, growing excitement over a far-future interstellar propulsion system can be taken as evidence for early ebullience … a key characteristic of the approach to the next Maslow Window.

The September issue (Vol. 61, No. 9) of the prestigious Journal of the British Interplanetary Society features six articles on how we may someday be able to travel to the stars using a faster-than-light (FTL) warp drive.

The secret to the stars may be the Alcubierre warp drive.
Click .

Although this may sound impossible now — and indeed our Universe may prohibit it — the first serious scientific speculation about warp drive was published in 1994 by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. His solution to the Einstein field equations features a “bubble” of highly curved space-time powered by a local expansion of space-time at the bubble’s rear and a corresponding contraction in front. It’s especially nice because while the bubble is executing FTL speeds, the spacecraft — comfortably ensconced inside the bubble — remains at rest with respect to normal space-time and thus doesn’t fuss with annoying time dilations or relativistic mass increases. Old fashioned wormholes need not apply in this future scenario.

But for now, the Alcubierre drive remains “scientific speculation” because of 19 unsolved physical problems with the concept, according to BIS Warp Drive Symposium Chair K.F. Long. For example, it’s not known yet how to disturb space-time to produce the desired “bubble” or how to obtain the large amounts of negative energy needed to maintain it. Plus, the 2nd Law of Thermo may prohibit negative energy anyway.

But assuming it’s possible, how long do aspiring galactic explorers have to wait? Jeremy Gardiner offers an estimate based on an interesting historical analogy with manned spaceflight to the Moon. Although Galileo first observed the Moon’s mountains and valleys in 1610, the first fictional account of human Moon travel was in 1657 by Cyrano de Bergerac. That was even before Newton published the rules (e.g., gravity) about how to get there in 1687. Robert Goddard discussed the theory of rockets in 1919 and then demonstrated it for liquid propellants in 1926. After being refined by the Germans (V-2), the Russians, and the Americans, the first manned landing occurred in 1969 — slightly over 300 years after Cyrano’s fictional winged spacecraft with staged rockets!

The Warp Drive timeline includes Einstein’s Special and General Theory in 1905 and 1915, John W. Cambell’s 1930 novel that first described warp drive (and later movies and TV shows like Star Trek), and the 1994 Alcubierre warp paper. Thus Gardiner suggests a real warp drive might be available around 2180!

Mark your calendars…

Albert Einstein called him “the father of modern science” for his insistence on the primacy of observation in the scientific method. But according to the Wall Street Journal (8/28/08), some others — i.e., Monsignor Melchor Sanchez de Toca of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture — claim his controversial story is “like a Mexican soap opera; it never ends.”

Indeed, in today’s world, when someone says “What goes around comes around,” they’re not usually referring to Earth’s orbit around the Sun — a major interest of Galileo’s — but they could be alluding to Galileo’s continuing, 400+ years of turmoil with the church.

Galileo’s troubles with the Roman Catholic church began in 1632 when he published his powerful defense of Copernicus’ helocentric theory based on solid telescopic evidence. Apparently, the 17th century church had already endorsed the dictum of a well-known Fox News commentator — “The spin stops here!” — because they summarily dismissed Galileo’s advocacy of a circling Earth as “absurd, false, and altogether contrary to scripture.” Plus Galileo was given an indefinite prison sentence.

Click .

However, things began to cool off in the early 18th century when the church allowed some of Galileo’s writings to be published. In 1835 it endorsed discussion of the Sun-centered model by removing all heliocentric publications from the list of banned books. More recently in 1992, after a 12 year study of the Vatican’s secret archives, Pope John Paul II publicly expressed regret at Galileo’s conviction and treatment.

As part of next year’s celebration of the first use of a telescope to study the sky (by Galileo), the Vatican received an offer from an anonymous donor to fund a statue of Galileo in the Vatican. Nuclear physicist Nicola Cabibbo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences remarked that “The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith,” (Times Online, 3/4/08).

In fact, Galileo has become not only the Inquisition’s most illustrious heretic but also a global icon of an apparent church/science conflict. This time the Catholic Church wants to be on the right side of history, including being officially open to the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrials as well as supporting the research of professional astronomers at the Vatican Observatory.

Galileo not only laid the foundation for modern science, but by being the first to use the telescope to study mountains and valleys on the Moon as well as the Sun and other planets, he pointed humanity toward its ultimate destiny in the Galaxy: space colonization. As we approach a time of accelerating global space activities — i.e., the 2015 Maslow Window — more people are coming to appreciate the monumental contributions of Galileo to the human future in space.

For example, young people fresh from a study of Galileo’s troubles with the church and infused with an exhilarating sense of humanity’s near-term potential for space colonization, sometimes react with anger as they unintentionally judge Galileo and the church by 21st Century cultural standards. This partially explains students at Rome’s La Sapienza Univ who rejected a visit by Pope Benedict XVI last January, because of his 1990 lecture that some interpreted as a defense of the Church’s conviction of Galileo.

But we can take some consolation in the fact that, unlike some others, Galileo was not burned or beheaded, but lived his life in comfort under house arrest. Let’s hope the anonymous donor comes through with the money and the Vatican can find a suitable place for a statue of “the father of modern science.”

At least Houston hopes it is! No, it’s not a rebellion of the flight controllers. The New York Times (9/7/08) reports it’s just a friendly game of interplanetary chess between Station astronauts and ground crews.

American astronaut Greg Chamitoff, who arrived recently with the astronauts who installed the Japanese Experiment Module and is an emissary of the Florida Chess Association, brought his own plastic chess set, complete with velcro on the pieces to combat zero-g!

NASA regards this whole thing as a good move. “This competition with the crew has been well-received. Part of it may be the competitive nature of our flight controllers. Who wouldn’t want to beat an astronaut, someone with the right stuff,” according to a controller on the NASA web site.

Dr. Chamitoff is apparently more than a match for mission control. After winning his first game, he is now engaged in 6 matches running concurrently with the ground. You can track his success here.

True space colonization involves living, working, and playing in space. Space chess shows that life there, even now, includes important times for recreation just like it does here on Earth.

However Astronaut Chamitoff returns to Earth in November, not long before Christmas. And if his ground controller friends and he are caught publicly discussing their chess victories, there may be a problem…because some people can’t stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.

(Thanks to Nicholas Johnson for the chess puns.)

When the most famous theoretical physicist of his generation and key leaders of the Christian world — representing the two most important cultural institutions of the modern world (science and religion) — talk publicly and seriously about a controversial subject, then you know it’s becoming more mainstream. Such was the case recently with the Vatican’s and Hawking’s comments on extraterrestrials (ETs) and their implications for humanity.

As we approach the 2015 Maslow Window (which may open near 2013), the public senses increased global activity in technology and space and thus becomes more aware of and interested in related topics. Both groups (in science and religion) respond by addressing the perceived interests of their constituents — yes scientists have constituents too; they buy their books, take their classes, and support their universities and research centers.

For example, in the Vatican Newspaper (5/13/08) the Director of the Vatican Observatory,
the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, asserted that life could exist elsewhere in the Universe.
“It is possible. So far we have no proof. But certainly in a universe so big we can not exclude this hypothesis.”

According to Dr. Funes, an Argentine Jesuit priest with a PhD in astronomy from the University of Padua (Italy), even intelligent extraterrestrials would not be a problem for believing Catholics, “As there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, so there may be other beings, intelligent, created by God. This does not conflict with our faith, because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God.”

As part of a lecture at George Washington University honoring NASA’s 50th anniversay, Stephen Hawking also suggested that we are probably not alone in the Universe. Hawking, the world-renowned cosmologist and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, believes ETs could be intelligent, but it is more likely that “Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare.”

For ETs to avoid galactic hazards and survive a long time, they must move into space. And in our case, Hawking believes that “If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before,” and he compares current opponents of space exploration to those who didn’t support Columbus in 1492.

One of the reasons space colonization can become a life insurance policy for human civilization is because of the devastating potential for asteroid impacts on Earth. In addition to the 1908 Tunguska comet impact — an A bomb-like explosion that could have leveled a modern city if it had not occurred in Siberia — scientists have recently found archeological evidence suggesting the ancient destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (recorded in Genesis 19: 24-26) was caused by asteroid impact.

Indeed, a Princeton professor has calculated odds for how much longer we’ll survive on Earth. Richard Gott, a Princeton astrophysicist, uses the assumption that we are at NO special time or place (known as the Copernican Principle) and the fact that humans have been around for about 200,000 years already, to forecast that — at the 95% probability level — it could be all over for the human species in as little as 5100 years (Nature, Vol. 363, P. 315, 1993), about the length of recorded human history. Incidentally, just to bring it into your personal timescale, if you increase the probability level to 99.9% — a near certainty?? — we have at least 100 years left.

To survive longer you have to do something “special”; i.e., you must violate the Copernican Principle. According to Professor Gott, “Clearly we would increase our chances of surviving if we colonize space.”

The Daily Telegraph (London, UK) reported yesterday that Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell definitively stated his belief that UFOs exist. In a phone interview, the former Apollo 14 moonwalker claimed that extraterrestrials have visited Earth many times. Mitchell, who has a doctorate in astronautics from MIT, also claims this has been covered up by the U.S. government for 6 decades; naturally NASA denied any knowledge. He’s scheduled to appear soon on a Larry King Live to explore these views.

Opinion polls going back decades have consistently shown about 1/2 of the American public believes UFOs are real and have actually come here. Dr. Mitchell’s message is reminiscent of the 1950s when UFO “waves” were reported, movies carried the ET message (e.g., “Day the Earth Stood Still”), and interest in manned space exploration was increasing.

As we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, when Moonbases, international competition in space, and the possibility of alien life, begin to take center stage again, the public may insist that all information about UFOs be revealed by government sources. As the 2015 economic boom elevates the public to higher Maslow heirarchy levels, the need to explore and know the truth increases.

Actually Mitchell’s UFO claims are not new; I remember him saying similar things at least 15 years ago. But I must admit frustration with those who ridicule him for it. Mitchell is exactly the kind of guy who could have inside information — NASA Apollo astronaut, test pilot, Navy Captain, MIT doctorate — if it exists.

As an astronomer who’s never seen a UFO myself, I’m impressed with the people who’ve talked with me privately, who have. I’m also impressed by the number of engineers in the aerospace industry and even academic astronomers who believe UFOs are worthy of scientific study. Probably the best book on scientific ufology is by Stanford physics professor Peter Sturrock, The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence.

Actually the public is generally unaware of the considerable antipathy between the SETI community and the UFO researchers. Both groups believe intelligent space aliens are out there, but the SETI folks are convinced they can’t travel interstellar distances to come here, while the UFOlogists believe they already have.

As we approach the next race to space and the public refocuses on things extraterrestrial, maybe this time we’ll find out who’s right!

Last weekend I was able to stop by American Apparel at the Art District in Santa Ana (California).

To see American Apparel, Click amapp.jpg

I wanted to check out their line of spacescape shirts, which are pretty much just crew neck tees with an abstract starry horizon splattered on it.

To see Rachel’s shirt, Click starshirt.jpg

Although these shirts are not groundbreaking in the world of fashion or space exploration it is an indicator that the human fascination with the cosmos is still ever present.

To see how great Rachel looks in her shirt, Click

On an unrelated note, I look sooooooooo cute in the raspberry spacescape shirt!