Economic news — e.g., unemployment, economic growth, housing — suggests the hoped-for U.S. recovery has stalled. A couple of weeks ago the New York Times (8/15/10; J. Sommer) openly speculated about the possibility of “double-dip” recession.

Is this the growing spirit of the Great Boom of 2015?
Click (AP) .

Are we headed toward a Double-Dip recession?
The Huffington Post (8/16/10) reports that Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics and New York University, indicated that the “Risk of a double dip recession in advanced economies (US, Japan, Eurozone) has now risen to 40%.” And both David Rosenberg (the Gluskin Sheff economist) and Yale’s Robert Shiller (co-author of Animal Spirits) agree that the odds of a double dip recession in the U.S. are “higher than 50-50.” They both blame the problem on “jobs.”

Economists are concerned by the unexpected recent decline in U.S. GDP; for example, Q4 2009: 5.6%; Q1 2010: 3.7%; and Q2 2010: 1.6%. David Rosenberg predicts that the U.S. GDP for Q3 2010 “will be negative … and that the recession never ended.”

… Or a Japan-style “lost decade”?
Others even suggest we may be heading for a Japan-style “lost economic decade.” Michael Darda of MKM Partners (Wall Street Journal, 8/13/10) cautions that “These concerns are not without merit.” But he suggests that,

There are key differences between where we are now and where Japan was … (that) make it less likely that we’ll succumb to a deflationary double-dip recession or a lost decade.

To help reduce uncertainty and revitalize the economy, Darda recommends that we create fiscal policies that are “sustainable, pro-growth,” and that increasing marginal tax rates would negatively affect productivity and government revenues. In general, according to a WSJ editorial (8/17/10),

The way to avoid Japan’s fate is to avoid the same policy mistakes, which means returning to the policies of the 1980s that revived the U.S. after the last Great Recession.

What about the end of American optimism and the “new normal”?
Although we should remind ourselves that we’re immersed in a major political season, some commentators do insist that our economic challenges are indicative of what the future holds for the world and U.S.: “the new normal.” U.S. News & World Report editor in chief Mortimer Zuckerman (WSJ, 8/16/10) asks,

What was thought to be normal in the context of post-World War II recoveries? One is that four quarters into the recovery, real GDP would expand at an annual rate over 6%.

Recall that U.S. GDP for Q2 2010 was just 1.6%.

Zuckerman points out that we’ve spent trillions of dollars on stimulus and bailout packages and yet nothing is working “normally.” Then Zuckerman wisely illuminates the issue by asking this long-term question:

The answer is: Yes, but we are about to enter into a new 1960′s, Camelot-style decade — a Maslow Window — where growth and prosperity will exceed even JFK’s Boom. These transformative, twice-per-century decades feature very rapid, but sustained economic growth and are punctuated by great explorations (e.g., Lewis & Clark), huge technology projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and sadly even major wars (e.g., W W I). The next golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology should arrive by 2015.

What will trigger the Great Boom of 2015?
Every Maslow Window back to Jefferson and Lewis & Clark — including the 1960s Apollo Moon decade — features the rapid ascent of many in society to elevated levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy (expanding their world-views) due to affluence-induced ebullience generated by an exceptional boom. Indeed, according to this theory, without the Boom of 2015 there will be no widespread ebullience and hence no Maslow Window.

Here are a few scenarios that could be a bridge from where we are to the next Boom by 2015:

a) The Milken Institute Ramp-Up Scenario:
According to Ross DeVol (WSJ, 8/25/10) gloom and doom can be economically devastating.

There’s a point at which pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, scaring business away from investing or hiring. The dark tone of today’s discourse is at risk of doing just that.

Milken’s report on …America’s Return to Growth, based on extensive econometric analysis, features “measured optimism” because “A return to modest but sustainable growth is at hand.” They see the U.S. economy aided by rapid growth in Asia, strong investment in equipment and software, and record low interest rates. They reject the “new normal” as a barometer for long-term U.S. growth rates.

According to Milken, the ramp up to the next boom begins with a real plan to reduce the deficit, temporary extensions of the Bush tax cuts, and a more positive attitude toward job-creating businesses.

b) The 2015 TechCast.org Green Boom:
While the Milken ramp-up scenario will begin to restore confidence in the economy and stimulate more businesses to think expansively, TechCast, founded by former George Washington University professor William Halal, is forecasting a huge boom near 2015.

The constant drumbeat of cascading business failures is certainly daunting, but technology forecasts suggest that a green revolution, advanced auto designs, surging e-commerce, and other new business sectors are poised to lead the global economy out of today’s recession, producing a new economic boom at about 2015 … I lead a research team that forecasts the evolution of technology and its massive impacts that are changing the world. We’ve developed an intelligent website (www.TechCast.org) that pools the knowledge of 100 experts worldwide to forecast breakthroughs in all fields … Our forecasts show that today’s surging interest in green business should take off in four-five years … Entrepreneurs are working on alternative energy sources – wind turbines, biofuels, nuclear plants, and solar cells. This entire “green revolution” is growing 30-50% per year, roughly the same rate of the famous Moore’s Law that drives information technology to double every 2 years … Green technology is roughly a $500 billion market and expected to reach $10 trillion in 2020, larger than autos, health care, and defense.

A boom this size could easily produce the large-scale ebullience that would drive the 2015 Maslow Window, including the development of Space Based Solar Power as the ultimate source for global power.

c) The 2009-2015 Global Infrastructure Boom:
Stanford University, as part of its Collaboraory for Research on Global Projects, sponsored a paper in 2009 by Eric Gerritsen of Global Internet Advisors, on “The Global Infrastructure Boom of 2009-2015: Strategic Economic Consequences for America, China and the Global Economy.”

Gerritsen observes that,

In response to the financial crisis of 2008 governments around the world have pledged to spend trillions of dollars over the next few years on what is loosely called “infrastructure” and what amounts to the biggest global build-out of physical economic assets in the history of man.

This global infrastructure boom will intensively unfold between 2009-2015 and will transform how the world looks, gets educated, moves goods and services, creates wealth, treats the sick, cares for the poor, powers its homes and businesses, and wages war.

The amounts of infrastructure money about to slosh into the world economy defy imagination: The Obama Administration will spend $150 billion of its $787 billion stimulus plan on infrastructure and is expected to add to that; China has pledged $585 billion and stands ready to do more; India is expected to spend $500 billion on infrastructure over from now till 2015; the EU $252 billion; Japan $129 billion; Canada $12 billion; Australia $4.7 billion, Singapore $13.8 billion; Germany $42 billion; and so on.

Gerritsen asserts that, during the next 5 years, the global infrastructure boom will have significant global economic, political, and technology impacts, and that it will likely drive “economic system convergence.” How this will play out for the relative positions of the states involved is anyone’s guess at this point. But it does provide a positive framework for the development of large-scale infrastructure (e.g., space based solar power) in space, as the 2015 Maslow Window swings open.

d) The New International Space Age:
Both long-term (e.g., 200 year long wave timing) and near-term (e.g., the Panic of 2008) indicators point to a new Maslow Window opening near 2015 that will feature the new international Space Age. Please search the last 2+ years of this weblog for the details, but the signals continue to appear.

For example, Putin announced this weekend that Russia will launch its manned space missions from a new space center 3600 miles east of Moscow, starting in 2018. In a display of Maslow-style ebullience and national pride, he called the construction “one of the biggest and ambitious projects of modern Russia” which “gives opportunity to thousands of young professionals to use their talent.” Recently I have suggested that Russia and China may decide to leverage their joint 2011 robotic mission to Phobos into a major bilateral collaboration for manned Mars colonization sometime after 2015. If taken by surprise, this could propagate Sputnik-like shocks though America’s economic, political, military, and educational institutions.

I’ve pointed out previously that, ironically — based on the last 200 years of macroecnomic patterns and global trends — the Panic of 2008 shows we’re within 3 to 5 years of a major economic boom and a new international Space Age. But the Panic/Recession seems to have triggered a political realignment in the U.S. that led to President Obama’s election and is continuing.

As usual over the last 200 years, this transformative event is announcing the approach of the next golden age starting in 2015, and has many interesting parallels with the Panic of 1893 and the ascendance of the ultra-ebullient Theodore Roosevelt during the Peary/Panama Maslow Window. Like a century ago, our current political realignment is motivated by — not political party or social class — but the return to prosperity. It’s always interesting that prosperity becomes Priority #1 as we approach a new Maslow Window.

The U.S. political realignment seems to be continuing based on the estimated 300,000+ attendees — an “enormous and impassioned crowd” — at yesterday’s spiritual rally in Washington, D.C., as suggested by today’s New York Times front page photo (8/29/10).

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

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.

Eighteen months into the Obama administration it’s appropriate to check Obama’s progress on space. I first sketched his status in 9/24/09; See “How President Obama is Creating the New Space Age.”

Does the BP oil spill threaten the new international Space Age as well as the environment?
Click .
(Image: U.S. Coast Guard)

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

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

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

But since last September, much has happened in the economy, in Washington, and in the world. And given the high likelihood of our next Maslow Window materializing near 2015, the key question remains: How will Obama create the exceptional prosperity that is the hallmark of such Camelot-like times?

As before, there are basically 2 options:

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

Three ways Obama could trigger prosperity are:

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

UPDATE: Some indicate that recent gains in the stock market and modest economic growth suggest we are on the verge of a robust recovery. However other indicators continue to cast doubts, including U.S. unemployment hovering near 10% and the record $ 13+ T national debt.

Indeed, The Economist for May 29- June 4, 2010, leads with a front cover headline, “Fear Returns. How to Avoid a double-dip recession.” And inside they continue with, “Governments were the solution to the economic crisis. Now they are the problem.” And New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (5/23/10) argues that “There is no margin for error anymore.” He quotes experienced global investor Mohamed El-Erian who warns that, “The world is on a journey to an unstable destination, through unfamiliar territory, on an uneven road and, critically, having already used its spare tire.”

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

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

UPDATE: For better or worse, this hasn’t happened. Obama passed his health care bill and recently revived discussion of climate legislation and new multi-B $ bailouts.

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

UPDATE: The New York Times (5/23/10) reports Europe is “rethinking its safety net,”

Bottom Line for Option I:
The economic case for Obama eventually becoming the new JFK is weaker than it was last September.

However, if he can overcome current challenges, Obama can still become the new JFK. He would continue the brilliant, transformative lagacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal, that began with Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark expedition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three things that could hinder Obama’s reelection are:

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

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

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

UPDATE: Little has improved here. In late February, Harvard’s Robert Barro (Wall Street Journal, 5/23/10) concluded that “The fiscal stimulus package of 2009 was a mistake.” Based on his long-term empirical model of past U.S. fiscal actions, he estimates a spending multiplier of 0.4 (in the same year) and 0.6 (over 2 years). Increased government spending reduces other portions of GDP like “personal consumer expendature, private domestic investment, and net exports.” According to Barro,

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

Published economic research by the current head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors — Christina Romer — raises doubts about Obama’s policy of major government spending to end the recession. The Wall Street Journal (8/21/09; Alan Reynolds) considers Professor Romer’s 1999 study (J. Econ. Perspect.) and concludes that, based on economic history since 1887, “bigger government appears to produce only bigger and longer recessions.”

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

According to William Gale of Brookings,

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

UPDATE: Little improvement here. According to Robert Reich (WSJ, 4/12/10), President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, “Many outsourced jobs will never return, and median income will likely continue to fall…”

Former Reagan advisor Arthur Laffer (WSJ, 6/7/10) sees an “economic collapse” for the U.S. in 2011 unless the Bush taX cuts are extended. “The result will be a crash in tax receipts … If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

c) Afghanistan turns into Vietnam.

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

UPDATE: Afghanistan continues to be a controversial “roller coaster.” Although Obama has tripled the number of U.S. soldiers there, “The conduct of a counterinsurgency operation is a roller coaster experience. There are setbacks as well as areas of progress or successes,” according to Gen. David Petraeus.

Also strategically controversial is Obama’s order to begin reducing American forces by July, 2011. According the the Los Angeles Times, (6/13/10; J. Barnes), “Petraeus did not elaborate on his own reservations and left the hearing moments later after becoming ill. But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he was worried that the timeline had undercut Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s support for the U.S.-led war effort.”

d) Something New — Widespread questions about Obama’s leadership capability arise.

UPDATE: This has centered on his administration’s slow response to the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill, and goes to the core of his ability to function as a visionary president.

For example, the New York Times (6/13/10) had several complaints.

It certainly should not have taken days for Mr. Obama to get publicly involved in the oil spill … It took too long for Mr. Obama to say that the Coast Guard and not BP was in charge … These are matters of competence and leadership. It;s time for Mr. Obama to decisively show both.

Response from Obama’s supporters to his first Oval Office television address was likewise unfavorable. For example, Chris Matthews (MSNBC) said, “I don’t sense executive command.” Maureen Dowd (NYT) commented that, “instead of the fairy dust of hopefulness there’s the bitter draught of helplessness.” And Time’s Mark Halperin described his own, “fierce, unforeseen disappointment.” With friends like that you can imagine the shots from the Right.

Broadening the critique to all areas of presidential leadership, Dorothy Rabinowitz (WSJ, 6/9/10) crafted the eye-catching headline, “The Alien in the White House;” not referring, of course, to his native-born status, but to “the distance between the president and the people.” And Peggy Noonan (WSJ, 6/19/10) thinks Obama is “snakebit,” in that he’s “starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter.”

As before, an interesting bottomline emerges:

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

Re: Mr. Obama’s Prospects:
Despite the fact that Mr. Obama is currently setting the stage for a robust, transformative new Space Age within the next 3-5 years, his presidential prospects remain uncertain and have become even more so since last September.

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

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

But he will have to reverse some of the above trends and perceptions.

Space-related global trends for the next decade are summarized here utilizing a long-term, empirical approach that focuses on patterns — over the last 200 years — in the economy, technology, and society. This unique approach to multi-decade space and technology forecasting was first sketched in Cordell (1996) and Cordell (2006), and further developed with colleagues in subsequent articles and essays, including the last 21+ months here at 21stCenturyWaves.com.

The Decade 2010-2020, will feature the opening of potentially the most transformative, 1960s-style decade — in space and on Earth — of the 21st Century. CLICK .
In honor of Robert McCall, the great space artist who passed away on 2/26/2010.

The basic 4-part approach is as follows:
1)  Sketch the economic framework for the decade based on long-term macroeconomic data and historical trends over the last 200+ years,
2) Identify recent trends in economics, technology, and geopolitics, that are likely to drive major directions — especially involving great explorations and MEPs — of the decade,
3) Where appropriate, insert specific forecasts from experts with special knowledge of key countries and/or potential events etc. (e.g., China collapse by 2015) that suggest possible scenarios, and
4) Identify Wildcards and evaluate their potential effects on the space-related trends and forecasts.

The success of this technique in providing significant insights into current and past space-related global trends and events – which you are invited to judge for yourself by perusing either the Categories or Readers’ Favorites lists — is encouraging, and has motivated this attempt to sketch major trends for the entire decade.

So, here are 10 Space Trends for the Decade 2010-2020.

10. Long-term Economic Trends Point to the Opening of Potentially the Most Transformative Decade of the 21st Century
Trends in the economy, technology, and society – over the last 200 years – show that we’re within a few years of potentially the most transformative decade of the 21st century: the 2015 Maslow Window.
Featuring clusters of great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (e.g., WWI), Maslow Windows are extraordinary 1960s-style decades driven by rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms. Powered by widespread affluence-induced ebullience, many people ascend Maslow’s hierarchy where their expanded worldviews make Apollo-style engineering projects and explorations seem not only intriguing, but momentarily almost irresistible.

Initially in 1996, I forecasted that “the decade from 2015 to 2025 will be the analog of the 1960s; it will involve major activities in technology, engineering, and human exploration … the focus will be on large-scale human operations in space and they will be spectacular.”

The 5 years immediately preceding a Maslow Window are typically challenging times of recovery from major financial panics and great recessions, like that which began in 2008; only the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window escaped this fate. The Panic of 2008 signaled that we have returned to the more “normal” pattern of pre-Maslow Window decades over the last 200 years.

Indeed, macroeconomic data over the last 200 years shows that we are on a similar GDP trajectory to that of previous Maslow Windows including the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window and the especially ebullient early 20th century Peary/Panama Maslow Window.

The first 5 years of any Maslow Window — e.g., 2015 to 2020 for the next one — are typically very active as the golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology is launched. For example, the early Apollo Maslow Window (circa 1957 – 1965) featured the Cold War, International Geophysical Year, Sputnik, the formation of NASA, Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. Apollo Moon program, and President Kennedy’s ‘to the Moon in this decade’ speech to Congress. See “Fred Kaplan’s “1959 — The Year Everything Changed” Points to the New Space Age.

Over the last 200 years, repetitive geopolitical and economic trends associated with the long economic wave indicate that the 5+ years before and after the opening of any Maslow Window are stunningly dynamic times, as the major economic boom gains momentum and international tensions increase, and as international events associated with great human explorations and macro-engineering projects (MEP) begin to unfold and dominate global headlines.

In general outline, that’s the next 10 years for space.

9. A Significant Military Crisis May Develop Early in the Decade (e.g., Iran) … but like usual, it will be rapidly resolved, and indeed may accelerate the world toward the 2015 Maslow Window.
The year of Obama – 2009, along with the years especially since 2005, have clearly set the stage for the 2015 Maslow Window. Please see, State of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for 2010, and State of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for 2009.

While preparing for a return to the Moon by 2020 with our international partners (and competitors) and strategizing about the Shuttle 5-year gap, we enjoyed basking in the “greatest global boom ever” (the hallmark of approaching Maslow Windows); see Fortune magazine, July, 2007. However, global prosperity came to a screeching halt as the current great recession began in December, 2007 and the financial Panic of 2008 gained momentum.

These and other factors triggered a continuing major political realignment in the U.S., including: the Year of Obama, concerns about economic sustainability, rebirth of the War on Terror, and a new approach to NASA and the human future in space. Similarities between current and previous macroeconomic, geopolitical, and technology trends over the last 200 years signal our approach to the 2015 Maslow Window and the new international Space Age.

For example, a possible war with a nuclear Iran and its potential effects on world (including China) energy supplies has parallels with the extremely dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis that intensified the U.S.-Soviet Moon race early in the Apollo Maslow Window. And the potential future political effects of a lingering or unsuccessful war in Afghanistan have some warning of parallels with LBJ’s Vietnam, that eventually ended the Apollo Maslow Window.

On the other hand, assuming — by analogy with the 1960s and all previous Maslow Windows — that we are able to control our early 2015 Maslow Window international crises, the spectacular foreign policy and technology success known as the International Space Station highlights a potential direction available to humanity as we contemplate the possibility of global, united human settlement of the solar system.

Current space-related trends associated with the global recession, a possible Sputnik event, the new NASA, a space commercialism boom, political realignments in the U.S. and elsewhere, global economic and demographic challenges, state-of-the-art technology and education, and possible wildcards, support the 2015 Maslow Window and are explored below.

8. The Financial Panic of 2008 Signaled That We Were Within 6 years of a New, Apollo-Style, Global Space Age
The Panic of 2008 and its Great Recession (see #9 above) devastated any lingering ebullience from the great global boom of 2007 and ultimately became a rationale for scaling back U.S. 2020 Moon plans.

Although predicted by a few — see Economic Crisis Supports Maslow Window Forecasts – the Panic of 2008/Great Recession nevertheless highlighted the limitations of current macroeconomic models, especially when unassisted by a long-term, empirical approach like that of 21stCenturyWaves.com.

The severity and historical sequence of pre-Maslow Window financial panics and great recessions is documented. For example, the spectacular mid-19th century Maslow Window featured the stunning ebullience of “manifest destiny” in the U.S., Dr. Livingstone’s still-celebrated central Africa explorations, and the “technological jewel” of the 19th century: the Suez Canal. It was preceded by the financial Panic of 1837 that triggered a great recession lasting until 1843. And it was no rose garden. According to Nobel economist Milton Friedman (writing in 1960), “It is the only depression on record comparable in severity and scope to the Great Depression of the 1930′s, and its monetary concomitants largely duplicate those of its later mate.”

Likewise, the ultra-ebullient early 20th century Peary/Panama Maslow Window was preceded by the Panic of 1893 followed by a great recession. The economy began to recover in 1896 with the election of President McKinley, but unemployment did not drop below 10% until 1899.

The historical record of both 19th and 20th century pre-Maslow Window panic/recessions suggests the current great recession should run no more than 6 years. Even better news is Harvard economist Robert Barro’s study of 59 international, non-war depressions since 1870 that shows they average only 4 years in duration. This data implies that the 2015 Maslow Window will easily open on time. It should be even easier assuming the Obama administration leverages the lessons of economic history and government policy accrued over the last 200 years. But what do current economists say?

Optimists remind us that most recessions are “V-shaped” and recover like tennis balls: a deep recession produces a robust recovery, which we should see in 2010. But many others forecast only a gradual recovery, including some experts at Davos who expect another “global dip” (New York Times; 1/28/10). Despite signs of recovery, the New York Times (2/21/10) warns of an increase in chronic joblessness, and of the perils of a “Japanese decade” (1/3/10). Prominent Keynesians complain that Obama’s stimulus/bailout packages are too small, while others warn of a “Keynesian hangover.” Still others worry about expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2010, the potential for inflation, record debt, and the general lack of public confidence in the recovery. This situation should remind us of Stanford economist Russ Roberts’ recent column (WSJ, 2/27/10) where he seriously asks if economics is “really a science?” The economy may be far too complex for our imperfect data and limited models to routinely produce reliable forecasts.

However, what is known is that no Maslow Window over the last 200+ years has ever been delayed or diminished in any observable way by a financial panic/great recession in the decade immediately preceding it. In particular, current economic circumstances resemble the great recession of the 1890s more than the post-war boom of the 1950s, and yet the 1890s resulted in perhaps the most ebullient Maslow Window in the history of the United States. That’s a reasonable expectation for 2015.

7. The Cancellation of Constellation will Create New Worlds for Space Commercialization and for NASA
President Obama’s recent budget terminates NASA’s Constellation program that was to launch astronauts to the Moon by 2020, and after this year proposes to launch American astronauts to ISS on Russian Soyuz launch vehicles until American companies develop man-rated Earth-to-orbit vehicles. Although some Congressional opposition to this plan has materialized (e.g., WSJ, 3/1/10; A. Pasztor), we assume that it will be substantially adopted at least for the short-term.

This will be the first time in 60 years that NASA has no capability or specific plans for its own manned launch vehicle. And NASA Administrator Bolden has emphasized a new style of international cooperation in space where NASA treats its international partners as “equals” and with “respect.”

This new paradigm for NASA supports forecasts made here based on long-term macroeconomic data and historical trends over the last 200 years, and suggests that the new global Space Age is not far away. For example, 1) in 1996, I suggested that the next major thrust into space will occur between 2015 and 2025 (see point 10 above) and suggested this might trigger the formation of an organization in which the major space nations share power equally in program planning and management, 2) in 1992 I described an ESA-like concept for a global space organization (“Interspace”) that features “equality” among the major international partners and opportunities for others to participate based on their human, technology, or financial resources (Cordell, 1992), and 3) based on long-wave timing, in 2006 I identified 2014 as the likely timeframe when NASA would undergo a significant transformation (although I did not imagine NASA as being removed from the launch vehicle business).

For the first time the U.S. government will be subsidizing the efforts of private companies to develop a reliable manned launch vehicle to ISS, while not developing their own successor to the Shuttle. Several grants have already been awarded to private space companies.

History shows repeatedly that when you combine adequate capital with technologically sophisticated entrepreneurs that are driven by the profit motive, a mighty force will be unleashed into the marketplace. Although it will take years for them to develop a safe vehicle to send astronauts to ISS, it is highly likely that — thanks to President Obama — the space commercialization boom has finally begun.

But what of the Moon and Mars as near-term destinations for human settlers? Apollo 11 Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin (WSJ, 2/26/10) praises Obama for removing the U.S. from a puzzling Moon race (which Buzz and Neil Armstrong won for the U.S. 40+ years ago) and refocuses NASA on technology development for deep space human missions like Mars as our “long-term objective.” He then quotes President Kennedy’s famous 1962 speech, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade…” as the type of “bold initiative” offered by Obama.

Unfortunately, unlike JFK’s Moon speech, there is currently no specific plan or timeline to go to Mars and there may not be any for many years to come. Based on long wave timing, we have only until the end of this decade until it becomes very difficult to initiate any major space program. This suggests that under Obama’s plan, a manned Mars initiative might not occur until the next Maslow Window that opens near 2071.

6. Affluence-Induced Ebullience will Drive Space-Related Expenditures to ~ $ 1 T (2007 USD) during 2015 to 2025
I estimate space-related MEP and exploration expenditures during the 2015 Maslow Window will reach between $ 1 T and 3 T (2007 USD), compared to about $ 150 B (2007 USD) for the 1960s Apollo Moon program. This is based on: 1) MEP cost extrapolations during successive Maslow Windows, and 2) ratios between previous primary-to-secondary MEP costs. Two examples of primary MEPs are the Panama Canal and the Apollo/Saturn V infrastructure, and secondary MEPs include, the Titanic and Great Eastern ships, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, and the Large Hadron Collider. All are very expensive, state-of-the-art projects (for their time) that caught the public’s imagination. This is affordable and pro-ebullient (see below) assuming that GDP in 2025 culminates between $ 29 and 35 T (2007 USD) as projected based on GDP trends of the last 200 years.

Such expensive endeavors are only politically feasible because of a powerful psychological phenomenon called “ebullience,” that over the last 200 years occurs exclusively during Maslow Windows separated typically by 55 to 60 years. Triggered by major, twice-per-century economic booms, affluence-induced ebullience becomes widespread and catapults many to higher levels in Maslow’s hierarchy where their expanded worldviews make Apollo-style explorations and MEPs seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible. See The Economics of Ebullience Points to a Sparkling New Global Space Age.

Over the last 200 years, widespread ebullience typically collapses rapidly in response to public perceptions of financial contractions and/or wars, not necessarily the facts. And since ebullience is not a totally rational condition, it’s onset and collapse are not necessarily rational either. But the important point is that ebullience actually drives Maslow Windows, not just economics.

Currently, we’re still recovering from a great recession and the public is anti-ebullient, as expected. There is no political incentive for Obama to plan Mars missions. But as the recovery begins to revive the economy over the next few years, it’s likely the U.S. will respond much like it did in the ebullient Peary/Panama Maslow Window led by Theodore Roosevelt.

However, even now there are signs of “early ebullience” around the world that remind us of what’s just over the horizon for space and technology development. It’s typical of the approach to a Maslow Window when certain elements of society — e.g., high-end clientele, dynamic societies, and/or groups especially excited about a particular MEP, — anticipate the ebullience that eventually engulfs society during the height of a Maslow Window. Since we apparently are only ~5 years from the opening of the 2015 Maslow Window, early ebullience is expected.

5.  B-R-I-Cs are the Solid Foundation for a Grand Alliance for Space
The BRICs — Brazil, Russia, India, and China are demonstrating multi-decade long wave trends as well as the style of ebullience that points directly toward the 2015 Maslow Window.

China is the biggest economic questionmark of the decade. Some forecasters see it eventually taking over the world economically, while Stratfor believes China will experience a major, Japan-like economic collapse by 2015. Barnett (2/13/10) asserts that China must switch to democracy soon because “democracies simply perform better–not by how they run things but by how they get the hell out of the way of those who really need to run things, aka the private sector.” But Stratfor sees China in a quadruple economic bind, including: giving employment primacy, stagnating Western imports, aging demographics, and internal income tensions. This is important because an economically robust China is often assumed to be a major space competitor of the U.S. during the coming decade. See 10 Reasons China is Good for Space.

According to Harvard’s Richard Pipes, “Russia is obsessed with being recognized as a ‘Great Power’.” This is partly due to their success in WW II and their “success in sending the first human into space.” Currently, Russia is not only playing a central role in ISS, it is expanding its domestic space infrastructure (the $ 13.5 B Vostochny Cosmodrome), anticipates a joint Phobos robotic sample-return mission with China in 2011-12, and speaks openly of possible joint manned Mars expeditions with the U.S. and others. However, its continuing leadership in space is complicated by its vulnerability to the global recession and its recent Cold War-like actions. See The New Cuban Space Center and Vladimir Bonaparte.

India may have the most ebullient space program in the world. It’s first Moon mission (Chandrayaan I) recently discovered water on the Moon, and advanced propulsion will drive their first robotic probe to Mars after 2013. According to the Indian President their manned orbital program will start near 2014, and will “electrify” young people in India. India’s economy has suffered “no crisis” during the global recession — growth dropped from 10% to 6.5% — which suggests not even the sky’s the limit in India as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window.

Brazil is one of the most ebullient countries in the world and has a growing space program to match. Selection as the first-ever South American site for the Olympics (in 2016) is symbolic of its “arrival on the world stage.” In 2006 Brazil’s first astronaut trained with NASA, flew a Russian Soyuz, and enjoyed a week-long stay on ISS. Then he became an instant celebrity. In 1992 I suggested that Rio de Janeiro would be an ideal headquarters city for a new global space organization (“Interspace”) that we forecasted would form by 2014. Brazil rapidly exited the global recession with a 1.9% GDP surge in 2009 Q2 and expects to grow 5% in 2010. They’re well-positioned to be an ebullient, global player in the 2015 Maslow Window.

Although not a BRIC, the #2 economy in the world is currently suffering from a debt/GDP ratio of more than 2 and is scrambling “to avoid being the next Greece” (WSJ, 3/1/10). The last half century of both Japan’s economic and political history are strongly consistent with the long economic wave. For example, Japan’s “lost decade” from 1991 to 2000 is centered on the trough (1997) of the 56 year energy cycle, and Japan’s historical election in 2009 — giving it a new government — occurred after 54 years (one long wave) of almost continuous rule by the LDP. Japan’s new strategy for growth during the next decade suggests it will retain its position as a major global leader in space, including current projects like ISS as well as major new initiatives such as its planned $ 21 B space-based solar power MEP.

All the major space powers enter the decade with significant economic and demographic challenges. This makes it appear that a Grand Alliance for Space — that would be promoted by a new global space agency like Interspace — would be highly likely, because no country would have the economic flexibility to do otherwise. However, our current economic trajectory is more like that of the late 1890s great recession than the pre-Apollo 1950s, and thus an unparalleled economic boom is probable as the drive toward prosperity gains momentum in the next 3-5 years. Therefore, a 21st century version of the late 1950s International Geophysical Year scenario is still realistic, and the possibility of a Sputnik-style surprise cannot be ruled out.

4. We are the Beneficiaries of 60+ Years of Space Technology Development, and Are Capable of going to Mars, Developing the Moon, and/or Utilizing Space Resources in the Next Decade

It is incorrect to say that we do not have the technology to go to Mars.

We already have the basic technology to go to Mars and ISS can help resolve issues related to long duration human spaceflight before 2020. While advanced propulsion is always preferred on Mars missions, it is not required. Split mission concepts — where return propellants, consumables, and other cargo — are sent first to Mars orbit before the crew leaves Earth improve performance and safety for the crew vehicles. In situ resource utilization is an important technology that is needed to process propellants from water (or other substances) on Phobos and/or Mars. It needs to be developed but is hardly a showstopper. The modern technical literature on human spaceflight to Mars is extensive and goes back 50 years; a good place to start is the Case For Mars volumes that began in the 1980s.

Great explorations always involve significant risk. The risk must be identified, quantified, managed, and then accepted. In essence, you are ready to go exploring when you think you are.

Columbus and his descendants could have waited until the 747 was invented to make the trip to America — it would have been a lot safer and more comfortable — but they chose to go in 1492. There were many unknowns (a pre-mission cost/benefit analysis was difficult) and the crew suffered casualties, but the mission of exploration was a success and the world was changed. In their 1963 EMPIRE study for NASA, German rocket scientist Krafft Ehricke and his staff at General Dynamics concluded that “Preliminary schedule analysis strongly indicates that a 1975 (manned) mission…to Mars is in the realm of realistic technological planning…” It was 6 years before the Moon landing, and Krafft Ehricke, Bill Strobl, and the other authors of the document calculated we were nearly ready to go to Mars. Even bolder was the pulsed nuclear propulsion system of Project Orion. Begun in 1958 at General Atomics by Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson, the goal was inexpensive, fast, near-term travel throughout the solar system, and every available technological assessment of the system shows that it would have worked. Larger, classified versions would have made good star-ships, but the project lost funding due to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

Post-Apollo Mars plans were canceled by President Nixon near the end of the Apollo Maslow Window, and no human has ventured beyond Earth orbit since the last Apollo mission in 1972. But the point is that serious plans and capability for manned Mars missions existed in the 1970s. To claim that manned Mars missions cannot be done in the next decade suggests NASA needs to be reminded of this superlative technological legacy and also needs to grow a pair — both of which will happen naturally as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window and become globally enthused by its surging ebullience.

3. The U.S. is Approaching Another Sputnik-style Crisis of Confidence in Education
In 1957, only 10 days after the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik — the world’s first artificial satellite — 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! Well they did. And 12 quick years later an American stepped onto the Moon.

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.

According to The Space Foundation, “The basic problem is that the U.S. education system is not producing students in quantity and at a level of achievement to be globally competitive.” This is because of “declining interest and achievement in the math, science, and technology subjects that are critical to the space industry.”

Due to a shortage of teachers prepared in science and math, the U.S. K-12 system produces a decline in the capability of our students in these crucial subjects. For example, 29% of 4th graders are rated as proficient in science and 39% were good in math. But by the time they reach 12th grade, students have declined to 23% proficient in math and 18% in science.

International comparisons for U.S. students are also uninspiring. In 2007, U.S. 8th grade math students ranked 9th after several asian countries (e.g., Taipei, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan), and 11th behind a similar group in science.

The impending retirement of Boomers fuels concerns about declines over the last 20 years in science and engineering B.S. graduates in the U.S.; even math and computer science graduates have remained only level during that time.

With or even without another Sputnik-style event in the next few years, concerns about the state of U.S. science, math, and engineering education will become more intense during the coming decade, possibly even reminiscent of one long wave ago in the 1950s.

2. President Obama is Creating the New Space Age — Another Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology
There is a political realignment taking place in the U.S. that began with President Obama’s election in 2008 and is continuing. It’s fundamentally about a return to prosperity. And while not always fully aware of it, President Obama is the prime motivator in America’s return to prosperity and leadership in the new Space Age. For details, see How President Obama is Creating the New Space Age.

Typically, during the twice-per-century upswings of the long economic wave and within a decade after a major financial panic (such as the Panic of 2008) and its major recession, we emerge into an ebullient, transformative decade known as a Maslow Window. Perhaps the most ebullient one followed the Panic of 1893 and was led by Theodore Roosevelt: the Peary/Panama Maslow Window from 1903 to 1913. But before that the mid-19th century Dr. Livingstone/Suez Maslow Window produced the “technological jewel of the 18th century,” the Suez Canal, and the famous Lewis and Clark Maslow Window opened the Great Northwest to the world in 1805.

One key lesson of the last 200 years is: The Panic of 2008 supports our expectation that the next Maslow Window will open near 2015. So the key question becomes: How will Obama create the exceptional prosperity that is the hallmark of such Camelot-like times?

There are basically 2 options:

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

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

A Democratic Party insider on a cable TV news program recently admitted that either Obama will bring back the economy and be reelected, or he won’t and will become a one-term president. It’s that simple.

Obama’s record fall in the polls has been reflected in recent elections including the historical “Massachusetts Massacre” — referring to the election of Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy’s long-time Senate seat — according to liberal columnist Frank Rich (New York Times, 1/24/10) who worries that Obama’s “populist rhetoric” is not enough. And a February CNN poll reports that anti-incumbent fever is at an all-time high. Only 34% of voters think most members of Congress should be re-elected, and 52% do not think Obama deserves a second term. On August 21 Robert Gibbs said that Obama is “quite comfortable” with the idea that sticking to his agenda might make him a 1-termer. But polls show the political realignment is not all about Obama, it’s about prosperity.

Despite the fact that Mr. Obama is currently setting the stage for a robust, transformative new Space Age — e.g., triggering a new boom in commercial space, discouraging a questionable Moon race, rekindling Americans’ desire for prosperity — within the next 3-5 years, his presidential prospects remain uncertain.

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

But whether Obama is a 1-termer or the new John F. Kennedy, he is still creating the new Space Age according to the trajectory of macroeconomic data and historical trends of the last 200 years; in fact, all realistic roads lead to a 2015 Maslow Window featuring another Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology, although wildcards are possible.

1. Potential Wildcards and the Bottomline for Space
The previous space-related trends –- based on macroeconomic data and historical trends over the last 200+ years — will strongly influence the human future in space during the 2010-2020 decade. However, other trends that are possible and important, but much harder to evaluate — the Wildcards — may also play a role, as they have in the past. Here are three.

A Major 2020s War:
Without exception, every Maslow Window of the last 200 years has been punctuated by a major war. A classic example is World War I that terminated the utopian ebullience of the Peary/Panama Maslow Window just as it was reaching its apex. The Apollo Moon program lost its last 3 planned Moon missions due to Vietnam, and might have been decimated if Vietnam had intensified just a few years earlier. Similar situations may occur in the 2020s, toward the end of the 2015 Maslow Window. If the expected 2020s major war occurs in the late 2020s, the Great Exploration and MEPs should be mature, but if it starts near 2020 or before, it might threaten the great Mars, Moon, or other space spectaculars possible in this decade. The exact timing of this Wildcard is unpredictable.

A Space Impactor Threatens Earth:
Sometime during this decade an Earth-crossing asteroid may be discovered that threatens Earth. Assuming there is time to react, this would trigger international planning — of the type currently advocated by Rusty Schweickart — and development of space systems and coordinated operations to deflect the object. This Wildcard would focus global attention on space, possibly lead to the development of a global space agency, and remind the world of the potential resource and exploration benefits of human settlement of the solar system. In short, it could be a very positive thing.

The Chinese and Russians Announce They Are Going to Mars Together:
Near 2014, in response to the booming global recovery, the Russians and Chinese announce plans for their joint manned mission to Mars during the 2015 Maslow Window. Because they are smart, they will do it the easy, safe, inexpensive way: Set up an initial manned outpost on the martian moon Phobos, because every two years it is easier to reach (energy-wise) than our Moon, and can process expected waters into propellants, as well as coordinate the scientific reconnaissance of Mars (using a huge fleet of small robotic surface rovers) in real-time from Mars orbit, with greater safety. If things go well, in a couple years they launch an unmanned mission carrying a Mars Lander to Phobos so they can send the first humans to the Mars surface whenever it’s convenient. This would be the natural outgrowth of their current collaboration on the anticipated joint China-Russia Phobos mission in 2011. While initially viewed as a Sputnik-like event by the U.S. and others, it might trigger a truly global approach to the human settlement of Mars.

In the powerfully ebullient environment of the 2015 Maslow Window — not seen since the 1960s Moon Race, the early 20th century “Panama-fever” of the Canal, the mid-19th century “manifest destiny” of the U.S., and the seminal exploits of Lewis and Clark over 200 years ago — almost anything is possible.

The big space news for 2009 was that we didn’t learn the answer to the big question: What is the future of human spaceflight in the U.S.? But this didn’t happen in a vacuum and it was anticipated by 21stCenturyWaves.com last January; see State of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for 2009. The U.S. space program exists at the intersection of long-term trends in economics, geopolitics, and domestic politics, and thus the space trends for 2010 are best understood in the context of those for 2009 and previous years.

2009 was a year of monumental change globally and especially — as President Obama promised — in the U.S.. The seismic shifts of 2009 — both positive and negative — will reverberate well into 2010.

For a post-State of the Union update, click HERE.

Here are 10 space trends for 2010:

10. Although 2009 was the Year of Obama, in 2010 it will continue to be hard for him to focus on space.

According to Stratfor, “Obama dominated 2009 as no freshman year president has since Reagan.” Early in the year public confidence in Obama was so high that he was easily able to engineer major bailouts and stimulus bills — including the $ 787 B stimulus package — that were guaranteed to keep unemployment under 8 %. As unemployment approached 10% public confidence in the administration began to decline; e.g., on July 12, the Los Angeles Times announced “The End of Obamania”. During 2009 the president’s job approval rating fell 20 points, from 68% to 48% (Gallup.com), largely due to high unemployment, record government spending, huge deficits, and Obama’s preoccupation with his health care program.

Recently the unthinkable occurred: a Republican (Scott Brown) won a special election in the most Democratic state in the U.S. (Massachusetts), and took the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy that he’d held for decades. And the Washington Post recently reported (1/16/10) that “By 58% to 38%, Americans said they prefer smaller government and fewer services to larger government with more services.” That’s 15% more people favoring small versus large government since Obama’s nomination in June, 2008.

Last January, 21stCenturyWaves.com noted that President Obama’s agenda would be dominated by the great recession and national security, and he would not be able to focus on space. This is still true; e.g., Gallup reports that “67% don’t expect economic recovery to start for 2+ years.” But unlike early 2009, Obama has to contend now with the serious political challenges of Republicans in 2010. All this comes as the U.S. space program is approaching a tipping point, as described below.

9. Economically, 2010 will be a year of uncertainty, but long-term trends continue to show we’re on schedule for a New Global Space Age starting near 2015.

Last January, 21stCenturyWaves.com reported that the timing and severity of the financial Panic of 2008 was consistent with our next Maslow Window — a golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology — opening by 2015. This is because over the last 200 years, a financial panic/great recession combination typically precedes the Maslow Window by 7 to 10 years (except for the 1960s Apollo Window which had none); e.g., the Panic of 1893/1890s Great Recession and the stunning Peary/Panama Maslow Window (~1901-13), and the Panic of 1837/1840s Great Recession and the ebullient Dr. Livingstone/Suez Maslow Window (~1847-57).

The big question is: How soon will the current great recession subside and allow the economy to return to the “greatest boom ever” that was interrupted by the Panic of 2008?

On July 24 (Wall Street Journal) Princeton economist Alan S. Blinder stated that, “The U.S. economy appears to be hitting bottom.” In its 2010 Annual Forecast (1/4/2010), Stratfor concurs but adds that, “pockets of economic weakness remain within the U.S. and larger problems continue elsewhere in the world.” Financial advisor John Mauldin (1/8/10) cautions against a robust “V” shaped recovery because of worries about continuing unemployment among others. His major concern is “Congress is likely to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire … (and) we could see a massive increase in taxes of $ 500 B … or 4% of GDP.”

Long-term patterns in financial panic/great recession pairs in the decade preceding Maslow Windows over the last 200 years suggest the 2015 Maslow Window is on schedule. Recent opinion polls and election results show frustration with Obama’s economic policies during 2009. Today’s New York Times (1/24/10; R. Zeleny, P. Baker) indicates Obama is aware of the political situation. If the trio of unemployment/spending/deficits is not reduced soon the American people may seek new leadership. Thus both long- and short-term economic and political trends point to a new Space Age by 2015.

8. Geopolitical and national security issues will continue to dominate Obama’s attention in 2010, but their timing and significance are consistent with a rapidly approaching Maslow Window near 2015.

It became fashionable in 2009 to compare Obama with previous presidents, mainly in connection with concerns about Afghanistan, Iraq, and other potential flashpoints. For example, the New York Times (8/23/09, P. Baker) sees a potential parallel between Obama and Lyndon Johnson because Afghanistan could eventually resemble Vietnam. More recently, Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations fears that Obama’s foreign policy could become like Jimmy Carter’s (Foreign Policy, Jan/Feb, 2010).

Stratfor (1/4/2010) sees the major geopolitical issues of 2010 as “Russia’s resurgence as a major power … (and) the sharpening crisis in the Middle East,” centered on Iran’s nuclear program and a potential “Israeli strike on Iran — a strike that could quickly spiral into a general melee in the world’s premier energy artery, the Persian Gulf.” The recent Fort Hood massacre and the Christmas Detroit airline bomber show that the threat of terrorism within the U.S. also remains a major concern.

In a recent post I showed that significant military conflicts occur either early in a Maslow Window or just before it; e.g., the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. Please see the summary in: How the West Was Won — The Expansionist Effects of Ebullience. These conflicts played a key role in the major exploration and/or technology activities of their Maslow Window. Given that the Iran crisis could threaten global energy supplies, it is a potential flashpoint nearly at the level of the Cuban Missile Crisis. These events signal growing international tensions that are characteristic of early or pre-Maslow Window times over the last 200 years.

7. The new NASA Administrator — Gen. Charles Bolden — supports true international collaboration in space, but doesn’t know “The Answer” yet.

Director Bolden emphasized the importance of international collaborations in space. Perhaps most important is the idea of treating our partners as “equals” and with “respect.” This is the 21st century trend in international space cooperation. My concept for a global space agency (“Interspace”) features organizational equality among the major players and an opportunity to participate for almost everyone else. In the mid-1990s I forecasted that Interspace would materialize near 2013, driven by global interests in space colonization.

Director Bolden also echoed a familiar theme of Obama: the importance of education. As in the late 1950s, in response to the launch of Sputnik, it is likely that similar calls for beefed up science and math education in the U.S. will ramp up as international activities in space intensify near 2013.

Although Bolden assured his audience that, “This will not be the president who precedes over the end of manned space flight,” he was unable to be more specific because Obama has not publicized his decision on the future U.S. vision for human spaceflight.

While NASA waits on pins and needles, Obama has not articulated his vision for manned space. This is partly due to the economic, geopolitical, and now the political trends that demand his attention. President Obama is in a tough spot. He cannot ignore space because of national prestige and growing international space programs. On the other hand, he must be willing to commit $ 3 B more annually to do the Moon and beyond. The solution, of course, is to join with other global space powers to settle the solar system together before a Sputnik-like event drives us apart. It will be an interesting test of his policy of international engagement in 2010.

6. 2009 was the year that Global Warming politics showed significant decline in response to Climategate, new science results, and the public’s rejection of this negative vision of the future.

The Climategate scandal showed that most scientists — including those associated with the IPCC who didn’t want to publicly admit it — agree that global warming ended in 1998, that temperatures have declined in recent years, and that global climate models based on CO2 effects cannot account for the current lack of warming, and thus cannot be scientifically used to forecast climate in future decades. The Climategate scientists also speak privately of manipulating temperature data sets to emphasize warming.

The Wall Street Journal (1/23/10) recently recounted the strange story of the “rapidly receding” Himalayan glaciers. In their 2007 report the IPCC insisted that these glaciers would disappear by 2035 — due to global warming. The IPCC was warned in 2006 by a leading glaciologist that the 2035 forecast was bogus, but they chose to ignore it. According to glaciologist Georg Kaser, “This number is not just a little bit wrong … It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing.”

Based on history of the last 200 years, including the 1960s, Maslow Windows are golden ages of prosperity, exploration, and technology. They are times of extraordinary affluence-induced ebullience when many in society ascend Maslow’s hierarchy and become supportive of great exporations and macro-engineering projects. The public’s growing rejection of global warming politics will continue in 2010 and is consistent with our approach to the ebullient 2015 Maslow Window.

5. The psychology of financial meltdowns and economic booms suggests that our current great recession will be followed by a major economic boom that will trigger the new Space Age.

Behavioral economist George Loewenstein of Yale recently (Discover, Jan/Feb, 2010) explained the factors which produce financial meltdowns as well as economic booms. They include 1) self-destructive behavior, 2) believing that what we want to believe is true, 3) short-term focus on immediate threats, and 4) lazy decision-making (going with the flow). These factors click in when the trend is up or down and thus reenforce behavior during both meltdowns and booms.

According to Keynes, the father of behavioral economics, the trick during a recession is changing people’s negative expectations to overcome their “animal spirits.” According to Keynesians George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, the economic policies of Franklin Roosevelt were ineffective during the Great Depression, “The drop in confidence during the Great Depression was so fundamental that it continued for a decade. Confidence — and the economy itself — were not restored until World War II completely changed the dominant story of people’s lives, transforming the economy.”

Obviously with 67% of Americans not expecting economic recovery to start for 2+ years and consumer confidence low, negative Keynesian animal spirits are currently in full force. When Obama is able to reverse the current trend and elevate consumer confidence, history shows the economy will rapidly respond with a major economic boom.

4. One of the most exciting developments in modern astronomy — the search for Earth-like planets — continues to motivate public interest in human expansion into the cosmos.

According to the online Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, as of January 23, 2010, there are a total of 424 planets known to be orbiting stars other than the Sun. Most of these are hot gas giants resembling Jupiter but much less than 1 AU (Astronomical Unit) from their star, as opposed to 5 AUs for Jupiter.

However, a few recent discoveries have had tantalizing, Earth-like results. In February a European group using the Corot space observatory detected a small planet in orbit around a star in Monoceros about light 500 years away. Subsequent observations confirmed that the planet is almost twice Earth’s diameter and 5 times its mass, indicating it’s composed mostly of rock. However, it is so close to its star that its surface temperature is a toasty 2000 degrees F.

In April, planet hunters reported that Gliese 581, a star only 20 light years away, has a planet with 7 Earth masses that is at the right star distance for liquid water. It is the first extra-solar planet ever discovered that could possibly support life. At only 20 light years distant, if the Gliesians exist and can build rockets, they should have been here by now!

And in March, NASA’s Kepler satellite began scanning 145,000 stars for transiting Earth-like planets. The observatory works. Earlier this month Kepler scientists announced the discovery of 5 new extra-solar planets. Earth-like planets can’t hide for long from Kepler.

Even smaller planets with Earth-like sizes and masses in their Sun-like star’s habitable zone will eventually be discovered, possibly in 2010 or soon thereafter. The closest ones — inhabited or not — will someday become targets for human exploration as human civilization expands into the cosmos.

3. In 2010 NASA will face a tipping point involving the Shuttle, the International Space Station, and international plans for human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars.

In 2010, the current plan is to complete construction of the ISS and retire the Shuttle. Four of the last 5 Shuttle missions will visit ISS and deliveries will include the U.S. Tranquility node as well as a Russian module.

Last month, Space News (12/14/09) suggested that “the administration will cancel Ares 1 in favor of a different approach to getting astronauts to and from the space station … (like) a commecially developed crew transport service (that) could be available sooner than Ares 1-Orion and at less cost.” Space News concludes that Administration changes must be “accompanied by a long-term commitment to meaningful exploration of space beyond low Earth orbit, with a credible story — with resources to match — for getting there…”

On the other hand, in the same issue (Space News, 12/14/09) Christopher Kraft warns that “The suggestion that commercially developed launch vehicles can replace the Ares 1 rocket is ill advised.” His recommendations include continuing to operate the Shuttle, continue to operate the ISS as long as it’s economically feasible and scientifically productive, continue with the goals of the Constellation program, and develop the capability to send astronauts to Mars.

In 2010 President Obama is facing a major political challenge to his presidency. He must reduce economic distress and show progress toward future prosperity, and at the same time he must run the war in Afghanistan, monitor Iraq, influence Iran and Russia, and neutralize global terrorists. This doesn’t leave much time for space, but he must respond to the tipping point space issues above. Human spaceflight is very supportive of Obama’s interests in motivating youth and improving education, and it is a powerful symbol of American leadership in the world. It is unlikely that US participation in a Moon race with China or others would excite the American public because the US won that prize over 40 years ago. And given the understandable anti-ebullient state of the American public, planning manned missions to Mars is probably out of the question during Obama’s current term. This leaves less expensive human missions to near Earth asteroids and/or Lagrange points as potential U.S. space objectives beyond low Earth orbit, possibly coupled with American leadership in a long-term international effort to expore, commercially develop, and eventually settle the Moon. In this scenario, preparations for human spaceflight to Mars would continue at ISS, with astronaut access provided by a commercially developed space vehicle, while the actual Mars expeditions themselves would be relegated to the late 21st century Maslow Window (starting in 2071).

2. President Obama is Creating the new Space Age: Scenario I — The JFK model

As the last 200+ years have shown, extraordinary pulses of activity in exploration and engineering are enabled by reliable, long-term business cycles. And all indicators suggest we’re sneaking up on the edge of another Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology that will trigger the new Space Age; see How President Obama is Creating the New Space Age.

Typically, during the twice-per-century upswings of the long economic wave and within a decade after a major financial panic (such as the Panic of 2008) and its major recession, we emerge into an ebullient, transformative decade known as a Maslow Window. Perhaps the most ebullient one followed the Panic of 1893 and was led by Theodore Roosevelt: the Peary/Panama Maslow Window from 1903 to 1913.

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

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

But the question is: Will Obama reverse current trends and set the country on a trajectory toward near-term prosperity — the hallmark of all Maslow Windows?

If he does Obama will be a 2-term president and will become the new John F. Kennedy without the Vietnam-style baggage of LBJ. And he will continue the brilliant transformative legacy that began with Thomas Jefferson and Lewis & Clark.

1. President Obama is Creating the new Space Age: Scenario II — The Theodore Roosevelt model

Another potential scenario is remminiscent of the Panic of 1893 that culminated with Theodore Roosevelt’s spectacular Peary/Panama Maslow Window of the early 20th century. The Panic of 1893 has parallels with the recent Panic of 2008 and the great recession that bottomed out in mid-2009. The great 1890s recession lasted nearly 6 years — and let’s hope that’s not one of the parallels.

In the Roosevelt model, Obama becomes a victim of the current great recession and — because of his inability to ignite prosperity — becomes a 1-term president much like Grover Cleveland in the 1890s. In this scenario Obama is replaced by a president who does start the recovery, points the nation toward prosperity, and triggers the 2015 Maslow WIndow.

So which is it? Scenario I — The JFK Model, or Scenario II –the Theodore Roosevelt model?

I. Long-term macroeconomic patterns — especially the Panic of 2008 — suggest the 2010s are more like the Roosevelt Maslow Window than the Kennedy one. In this case, the great recession that favored Obama’s election in 2008 would ultimately prove to be his undoing (like Grover Cleveland), and thus support Scenario II.

II. Recent polls and election results — especially the recent Massachusetts Senatorial shocker — show the public is anxious about Obama’s economic policies because they haven’t reduced unemployment and seem inconsistent with prosperity. These also support Scenario II.

III. But it’s still really all up to Obama. If in 2010 he decides to reverse course, reduce economic distress, and stimulate the recovery, he will experience Scenario I. If not, it will be Scenario II. In a month or two we should be able to discern his economic trajectory.

Aerospace America (October, 2009), a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, asks an interesting question this month — one that goes to the core of NASA’s as well as humanity’s future: Is human spaceflight optional?

Is near-term space colonization almost inevitable? Click .

There are many responses to this question.

For example, the European Space agency affirms that,

Space activities help to define nations and their place in the world. Countries that explore space are envied as frontier nations with cultural vigour and leading technologies. The number of countries involved in space exploration is growing steadily and we are entering a new era of historic significance, in which we will extend human presence beyond Earth’s orbit, both physically and culturally.

The Global Exploration Strategy is key to unlocking humanity’s future in space. With increasing intent and determination, our partners plan to return to the Moon and beyond with the goal of sustained and ultimately self-sufficient human presence beyond Earth. It is an enormous challenge that no single nation can undertake on its own. We must do it together.

So for ESA, it sounds like the answer to the question is: Spaceflight is not optional because Europe associates human spaceflight with societal “greatness” through expanding the boundaries of science, technology, and industry by extending human presence and culture to the Moon and beyond. And “entering a new era of historic significance” sounds very much like approaching the 2015 Maslow Window.

The Space Foundation recently made the case for an operational International Space Station at least through 2020. Although ISS construction should be completed in 2010,

The U.S. is considering wrapping up its ISS involvement in 2015 and letting the $ 100 billion orbiting laboratory re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up in 2016. The ISS is both the largest and most collaborative human-made object ever to orbit the Earth. Fifteen countries are involved in the project … ISS education programs have reached more than 31 million U.S. students.

Elliot Pulham, Space Foundation CEO, is also concerned about potential negative perceptions of U.S. leadership, reliability, and commitment to large-scale space initiatives. Just before the last U.S. presidential election, MIT suggested that the U.S. and other potential Mars-faring countries should use ISS out to 2020 to develop microgravity countermeasures for long-duration interplanetary missions. So for the Space Foundation, human spaceflight is not optional, and its most dynamic, international symbol is ISS.

21stCenturyWaves.com has previously highlighted the revealing, multi-decade history of the space station program in the context of the long wave. For example, one of the most charismatic presidents in U.S. history, Ronald Reagan, was unable to make the station materialize within a decade of its proposal (1984), because of the lack of societal “ebullience” in the years near the Crash of 1987. Later, the station was nearly canceled by the U.S. Congress but benefited from the end of the Cold War and Bill Clinton’s internationalization of the program. In the U.S., the ISS continued “under the radar” for years. (For details please see The Shocking Truth About the Father of the Space Station.”)

As we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, it’s very likely that the American public will develop more enthusiasm for the project. It would be the supreme anti-ebullient irony for the U.S. to terminate ISS just at the moment the world is entering the next Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology. That’s why it’s unlikely to happen.

Like ESA, Buzz Aldrin is convinced of the viability of the Moon and Mars as sites for human outposts and settlements. Last week he advocated that the U.S. forego any Moon races — which the U.S. won back in 1969 — and instead foster a global approach to lunar exploration and colonization featuring the Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation. According to Buzz, the LIDC

will pool the financial, technical, and human resources of its member nations to build the lunar communication, navigation and transportation systems needed for human exploration of the Moon. It would be a public/private global partnership … (that) will enable a sustainable human presence on the Moon that will be accessible to all the nations on the Earth.

Similar to Interspace, a concept for a global space organization proposed by Otto Steinbronn and myself in the early 1990s, LIDC will allow any nation on Earth to participate in Moon exploration by the purchase of corporate shares at whatever budget level is convenient for them.

Concerned that manned exploration of Mars was being neglected or deemphasized, Aldrin earlier proposed an ambitious U.S.-led human Mars exploration program featuring one-way human missions to Mars; i.e., the Mars astronauts would become colonists. The Russians have recently proposed joint manned missions to Mars with the U.S. and others.

The Augustine recommendations as described in Aerospace America are basically a series of options for the U.S. future in space that suffer from a lack of funding. “The clear message was that if NASA’s budget stays at historic levels, U.S. astronauts have little chance of ever leaving LEO.”

21stCenturyWaves.com brings a unique perspective to this issue based on the great explorations and macro-engineering projects of the Maslow Windows back to Lewis and Clark.

Here are five forecasts based on the lessons of the last 200 years, including recent global trends:

1. NASA Funding Will Increase. Because of healthy international competition and interests in lunar exploration, it’s likely — even in the short term (~2010) — that NASA funding will increase to a level enabling human spaceflight beyond LEO. If the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window experience is any guide, funding will recede as a serious issue as we approach 2015.

2. Space Activities during the 2015 Maslow Window Will be at the $ 1 T to 3 T level (2007 USD). This is based on MEP funding trends from previous Maslow Windows and the costs of current “secondary” MEPs.

3. NASA will Adjust to Increasing International Cooperation and Programs Beyond LEO. In 2013 NASA will be one long wave old and will likely become a member of a global space organization like Aldrin’s LIDC or our Interspace concept. This organization might help the world avoid a costly replay of the Cold War Sputnik-style space race.

4. During the Next Maslow Window, a Manned Mars Program May Occur Simultaneously With the International Moon Program… depending on global ebullience and funding levels. But based on previous Maslow Window durations, the 2015 Window will probably close before 2025 — not enough time for a Mars program to directly follow Moon exploration.

5. Human Spaceflight Is Not Really Optional. Probably the most powerful message of the last 200 years is that great explorations and monumental engineering projects are a product of two things: the laws of economics and human curiosity.

How Exploration and Technology Booms Really Work

While humans in general are hard-wired to want to go exploring as much as possible, in the modern world the only time they can is when economic pressures are reduced during the twice-per-century, unparalleled economic booms that trigger Maslow Windows. During this affluence-induced “ebullience”, many in society are catapulted to higher levels in Maslow’s hierarchy where their momentarily expanded world views make new exploring and massive building seem not just intriguing, but almost irresistible. This “ebullience” is an enhanced form of the “animal spirits” of Keynes and more recently Akerlof and Shiller, and the “irrational exhuberance” of Greenspan. The timing of the Maslow Windows is based on long waves in the economy as first described by Kondratieff (i.e., the K-Wave) and more recently Stewart (energy cycles), Strauss and Howe (generational cycles), and others.

This theory rests fundamentally on the three pillars of Maslow, Kondratieff, and Keynes, including modern extensions of their work, and is supported by global trends and key events described in this blog and elsewhere. Maslow Window Theory shows why — every 55-60 years — humans get momentarily swept away by extraordinary explorations and technology projects. However, they are still constrained by geographical and technological knowledge of their day, and there is a discernable sequence to both.

For example, Napoleon’s adventures and embryonic “manifest destiny” pressures made Lewis and Clark’s explorations of strategic importance. One long wave later the secrets of equatorial Africa became the focus for European exploration. In the early 20th century, because North America and central Africa had been probed, the only exciting places left were the North and South poles. And in the 1960s, the development of rockets made the Moon possible. None of these great explorations was entirely rational — they were the product of “ebullience” — but a logical sequence is seen: Each target for great exploration is a new geographical site of great interest that is less accessible than the previous one, but reachable with existing knowledge and technology.

So in a human sense, space is not optional because it — like all the great explorations over the last 200 years — is a product of unusual prosperity and human nature. As we approach 2015, growing ebullience around the globe will make major space and technology programs irresistible.

The only ways to stop space are: 1) to stop prosperity by interrupting the long booms that trigger Maslow Windows twice each century OR, 2) to change human nature.

Despite numerous well-known economic and military crises over the last 200 years, neither has ever occurred.

This State of the Wave summarizes specific progress toward the opening of the 2015 Maslow Window and movement toward real, near-term space colonization. The focus is on events and trends of long-range significance.

Coined by Goldman Sachs in 2001, the “BRICs” refers to the dynamic countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, who Goldman suggested “could eclipse the combined economies of the richest countries of the world” by 2050.

21stCenturyWaves.com has written about them many times in the context of economic growth and space exploration over the last 18 months. However, it is extraordinary to see the BRICs so clearly demonstrating multi-decade long wave trends as well as the style of ebullience that points directly toward the 2015 Maslow Window. This brief State of the Wave is dedicated to all of them.

BRAZIL’s Olympic Glow
According to the New York Times (10/4/09; A. Barrionuevo), Brazil is “celebrating its arrival on the world stage” with its selection as the first-ever South American site for the 2016 Olympics. Despite the direct participation of President Obama, Rio de Janeiro beat out Chicago handily. According to Brazilian President da Silva, “Brazil went from a second-class country to a first-class country, and today we begin to receive the respect we deserve.” Another Brazilian ebulliently sums it up, “My Brazil is solid. We have it all.”

Since the economic benefits of hosting an Olympics are few — it is mainly a spectacle — this is truly Maslow Window-style ebullience on display from Brazil.

Brazil’s 1960s-style ebullience — its Olympic glow — extends beyond just the Olympics to being an economic powerhouse as well as a growing global space power; it’s what we’d expect of a major player in the approaching 2015 Maslow Window. For example, its economy recently dramatically exited the recession with a 1.9% GDP increase in the 2nd quarter over the first (WSJ, 9/12/09).

Quoting from my 5/20/08 Brazil post:

Brazil has Latin America’s most prominent space program including their own launch vehicles, environmental and communication satellites (some in cooperation with China), and their enviable Alcantara launch site (within 2 degrees of the equator)! In 2006, the first Brazilian astronaut — Marcos Pontes — after training with NASA, ascended on a Russian Soyuz rocket for a $ 10.5 M, week-long stay on the International Space Station. Colonel Pontes’ instant celebrity power exceeded even the best soccer stars that Brazil has to offer, and gave him access to the Brazilian president and a prominent association with Brazilian comic books and toys! …

In 1992 writing in Space Policy, I suggested that Rio de Janeiro would be an ideal headquarters city for a new global space organization that we forecast will form by 2014. Today it seems even more appropriate considering Brazil’s likely pivotal role in the rapidly approaching international race to space.

RUSSIA and the International Space Station
The European Space Agency reported this morninig that ESA astronaut Frank De Winne became the first European commander of the ISS; he took over from Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka who had been ISS commander since April. Prior to this morning, only Russian cosmonauts and U.S. Astronauts had filled this role.

Russia’s continuing leadership in space is complicated by the global recession. Stratfor reports that the Russian GDP is expected to shrink by 7.5% in 2009, somewhat less than the 8% forecast previously. (For comparison, Reuters recently reported that the U.S. economy is expected to decline by only 2.5 % in 2009 (and rebound by the same amount in 2010) according to private economists polled October 5-6 for the Blue Chip Economic Indicators October survey.) President Dmitri Medvedev admitted that, “As soon as the crisis occurred, we collapsed. And we collapsed more than many other countries.”

According to Richard Pipes (Wall Street Journal, 8/22/09), former professor of history at Harvard and member of Reagan’s National Security Council, “Russia is obsessed with being recognized as a ‘Great Power’…” This is partly due to their victory over Germany in World War II and “the success in sending the first human in space.” But Russia’s veering in the direction of a new cold war hasn’t helped them economically; “Russian aggression against Georgia has cost it dearly in terms of capital flight.” And Russia’s dependence on the global price of energy caused their exports to drop by 47% in first half of 2009.

Although most Russians do not see themselves as European (and they are not Asian either), Pipes believes it is essential to convince them that “they belong to the West and should adopt Western institutions and values: democracy, multi-party system, rule of law, freedom of speech and press, respect for private property…” This is especially important in a world repeating many key trends of one long wave ago, including a new Cold War (e.g., their apparent involvement in the Iran nuclear program) and the international build-up toward large-scale space activities (including proposed joint Russia-U.S. manned Mars missions) in the 2015 Maslow Window. The obvious twist this time is a strong Russia/U.S. alliance in ISS, and the fact that they may serve as our ticket to ISS after the Shuttle is retired.

INDIA’s Ebullient Space Program
India’s space program is among the most ebullient and aggressive in the world. The recent spectacular success of their first mission to the Moon — Chandrayaan-1 — in detecting small amounts of water on the Moon is indicative of many even greater things to come as we approach and enter the 2015 Maslow Window.

For example, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is contemplating its own robotic mission to Mars between 2013 and 2015 (as the next Maslow Window opens). ISRO anticipates using their Geosychronous Satellite Launch Venicle (GSLV) and either “ion thrusters, liquid engines or nculear power” to thrust their spacecraft to Mars. India also envisions its own Earth orbital human spaceflight program in the 2014-2015 timeframe. In support of this goal is the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment, a new astronaut training center in Bangalore by 2012, and the development of a 3-person crew orbital vehicle capable of orbiting the Earth for 7 days.

India’s economy has slowed from 2007 growth rates approaching 10%, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh emphasized recently, “There is no economic crisis in India. It is certainly true that as a sequel to the global economic crisis our exports have suffered … but even then our economy is growing at a rate of six and half per cent. Therefore there is no crisis, as such in India.”

Although India naturally feels a competition with China’s impressive space program, Indian leaders also want to enhance the development of high technology, share in space science discoveries, and excite young people. According to Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a rocket scientist who is known as the father of India’s missile program, the Indian space program will “electrify” the spirit of young scientists. This is clear evidence of early and growing ebullience in the Indian space and technology communities — exactly what we’d expect, based on international events one long wave ago, as we surge toward the 2015 Maslow Window.

CHINA’s 60th Anniversary
China recently celebrated one long wave of the People’s Republic, or “60 years of chinese communism,” says Gordon Chang in the Wall Street Journal (10/1/09). “The Chinese state will try to project strength … fearsome weapons … 200,000 soldiers … a grand procession in the center of Beijing.” And they did. Self-described “panda hugger” Thomas Barnett felt the parades showed a “lack of confidence … I see a celebration of everything that’s stood in the way of China’s return to growth and prosperity.”

From the perspective of 21stCenturyWaves.com, it’s especially intriguing that the celebration of 1 long wave of Chinese communist rule featured — in addition to massive military might — a float emphasizing Chinese success in space. The military display was intended to help the Chinese feel “a sense of security, a sense of pride,” according to one Chinese observer, whose restaurant was shut down for the celebration. However, perhaps the space float was an invitation to China’s future during the 2015 Maslow Window as a global leader in the commercial and scientific development of near-Earth space, the Moon, and beyond.

Over a year ago in “10 Reasons Why China is Good for Space,” I acknowledged Mao Zedong’s call to action in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, the rapid growth of China’s space infrastructure including its capability of launching humans into orbit (first manned orbit mission in 2003), and the international prestige and growth of Chinese nationalism (due to its popularity in China) which space has created. And although China’s economy has featured 10% pre-crisis growth, since 2008 its economy has taken big hits. Ironically, The Economist (10/10/09) is now warning that China’s recent GDP rebound might result in a bubble economy unless China adopts an independent monetary policy that frees the yuan from the dollar.

Chang laments that “the Party is increasingly out of step with the dynamic people it governs,” and despite the paranoid parade, Barnett awaits “the truly confident China to someday appear,” while former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair (WSJ, 10/9/09) suggests that when we consider China’s last 60 years, “reflect on how far they have to go. But spare a thought for how far they have come.”

China’s interest in space — the technology, the exploration and science, the international prestige — is very “1960s”, as it is for all the other BRICs — and that’s intended as a high compliment to their capabilities and aspirations. It’s a clear international signal that we’re approaching the 2015 Maslow Window — the next Golden Age of Prosperity, Exploration, and Technology.

However, this time — because of our knowledge of 200+ years of Maslow Windows — we’re smarter, and we may even have a choice. I vote that we have a “Grand Alliance for Space“, featuring a unified, global approach to human settlement of the solar system. But I have to admit that the history of the Cold War space race, the exploration of Earth’s polar regions, and even the Lewis and Clark expedition suggest it will be otherwise.

Friday in the Wall Street Journal (7/24/09) Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton professor and former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, announced that, “The U.S. economy appears to be hitting bottom.” Mr. Blinder presents his message in a good news/bad news format, indicating that although economic growth will soon arrive, we still are in a very serious global financial situation.

Intrade.com participants believe U.S. unemployment will hit 10% by December, 2009. Click

One of the especially scary economic signs so far is that our major recession has been mirroring the 1930s Great Depression, especially on a global level. This suggests while the U.S. may lead the world out of the recession, it may take longer than expected to do it. Although at 7.5 % growth — a 19 year low — China is still not economically large enough to play this role.

World GDP decline has been tracking the Great Depression’s pace well. (From Eichengreen and O’Rourke, 2009) Click worldgdp.doc.

According to financial advisor John Mauldin this is serious business,

To sum up, globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression, whether the metric is industrial production, exports or equity valuations. Focusing on the US causes one to minimize this alarming fact.

That’s why it’s so important that the U.S. economy finds the bottom and soon begins the recovery, which WSJ believes it has apparently done.

Despite this, Blinder states that,

Jobs will take longer, maybe much longer to revive … So even though the economy may be making a GDP bottom about now, the unemployment rate will probably keep rising for months … It will take years of strong growth to return to full employment.

Nobel prize winner and Berkeley economics professor George Akerlof and Yale economist Robert Shiller (Animal Spirits, 2009) see parallels between our current situation and the Panic of 1893 and the subsequent 1890s recession, “In the United States the obvious ‘trigger’ for the depression was the financial panic of 1893.”

The Panic of 1893 and the 1890s recession is a possible analog for our current financial situation and I’ve plotted U.S. unemployment for both; click 1890s1.doc.

In the plot, the 1890s revised unemployment data is from Christina Romer (1986) and cited in Akerlof and Shiller (2009). I have horizontally shifted the plots so that 1893 (the year of the panic) is directly above 2008 (the year of our panic); this allows the chronological trends of the unemployment data from both eras to be compared directly. (I assumed the unemployment for 2009 will be 10% but it might be higher.)

Although the dimensions of the global recession suggest that almost anything is possible, the apparent bottoming of the U.S. economy points to a more hopeful future. And if the 1890s are a descriptive model for today’s recession, it suggests an envelope for our current unemployment trends; i.e., nothing close to the peak of the Great Depression (~25%), although potentially one to a few years at or near 10%. This can be influenced by policymakers in Washington, DC and elsewhere around the world.

The 1890s model also suggests that unemployment should be well below 10% long before 2015, the expected opening date of our next Maslow Window. Keep in mind that the spectacular Maslow Window exploration and technology activities of the last 200 years were driven by a momentary, pervasive feeling of ebullience — not triggered by a high GDP, but by growth in real wages and declines in unemployment — because many people feel that they are really are getting ahead.

Despite the current major recession, these conditions are likely to be met prior to 2015. In fact, the feelings of euphoria generated by the end of the global recession itself are likely to trigger the initial ebullience that will rapidly accelerate into the spectacular 2015 Maslow Window. This would be a replay of what happened when the 1890s recession ended and gave birth to one of the most ebullient decades in U.S. history — the Peary/Panama Maslow Window.

This State of the Wave summarizes specific progress toward the opening of the 2015 Maslow Window and movement toward real, near-term space colonization. The focus is on events and trends of long-range significance, especially in the context of the 10 Wave Guides.

1) The Economy

U.S. unemployment is 8.5% — the worst since 1983 — and forecasters say it is headed to 10% later in 2009, and “the world economy is in the midst of its deepest and most synchronized recession in our lifetimes,” according to Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Wall Street Journal, 4/1/09).

Nevertheless, the globally slumping economy remains well within the historical envelopes of similar pre-Maslow Window panic/recessions over the last 200 years.

The New York Times (3/15/09, V. Bajaj) cautiously seeks the bottom by noting that: 1) price/earnings ratios for stocks are very low now but still about twice the P/E ratios of market bottoms for 1932 and 1982, 2) although existing house prices have declined by 1/3 (in current dollars) from their peak in 2006, they remain higher than in the housing booms of the 1970s and 1980s, and 3) Americans are starting to cut back on consumer spending of disposable income which has recently hovered near 100%. According to Obama economic advisor Lawrence Summers, these are the type of early signals that suggest the crisis is easing, although it’s not clear how soon it will end.

On the other hand, the Congressional Budget Office indicated recently that Obama’s budget would result in annual deficits of about $ 1 T over the next decade, and the total deficit from 2010 – 2019 would be “$ 2.3 T more than the administration forecast last month,” (Wall Street Journal, 3/21/09). This could weaken support for Mr. Obama’s spending initiatives. For example, North Dakota Democratic Senator Kent Conrad expressed concern over the long-term debt level because it “threatens the economic security of this country — I believe it in my bones.”

The odds of our current recession reaching depression status were estimated at only 15% recently by a Wall Street Journal (3/30/09, Justin Lahart) poll of economists. According to 94-year old economist Anna Schwartz, who studied causes of the Great Depression with Milton Friedman, “When you get an unemployment rate of 25%, everyone is conscious of that and fearful. We’re not talking in the league at all.” According to Lahart, a depression today would be different than the 1930s because fewer people work in agriculture and more are in service-related jobs today, plus the social safety net programs (e.g. unemployment insurance) would “blunt the blows.” Even without an official depression, Nobel economist Paul Samuelson, is concerned that “after the economy bottoms out, there could be a ‘lost’ four or five years of sluggish growth.”

Even Samuelson’s bleak scenario wouldn’t significantly delay the next Maslow Window. Indeed, growing global Maslow-style pressures to explore and colonize the Moon should have a positive economic effect; e.g., as they did toward the end of the 1893 panic/recession just prior to the Panama Canal/Polar Exploration Maslow Window.

2) North Korea Missile Launch

The launch of Pyongyang’s Taepodong-2 rocket occurred as I was writing this post; Stratfor reports that, “North Korea launched a satellite into orbit via a multistage rocket, Yonhap reported April 4, citing a statement by the Japanese government. The rocket lifted off at 0230 GMT, and it passed over Japan as planned in the flight path.”

The launch had generated global concern: The Los Angeles Times (2/8/09; J. Glionna)speculated that it might test the U.S. “The missile is pointing at Obama. North Korea thinks that with such gestures they can control U.S. foreign policy,” according Baek Seung-joo of the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis in Seoul. Anticipating its trajectory to be over Japan, Tokyo positioned missile interceptors against the rocket or its debris (Wall Street Journal, 3/28/09). British Foreigh Office Minister Bill Rammell, while visiting Seoul, said the launch would be “a clear breach” of the UN Security Council Resolution 1718. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton labeled the North Korean launch a “provocative act” that would have consequences.

Stratfor reported on 3/25 that according to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, “all indications suggest that North Korea will actually launch a satellite.” It appears he was right.

I suggested earlier that “the North Koreans are betting that the ‘global trend of the times’ — i.e., new space programs are developing in many countries around the world — will make the DPRK story believable.” This global trend is a major theme of 21stCenturyWaves.com featuring the approach to our next Maslow Window (expected in 2015) — the culmination of 200+ years of long-term trends in the economy and technology development, characterized by a major thrust toward international human expansion into the cosmos.

On April 3, Stratfor stated that “Ultimately, the Taepodong series missiles and SLVs are showpieces — diplomatic tools Pyongyang wields with care. They are not weapons,” for a variety of reasons including inaccuracy, low production numbers, slow launch capability, and NK’s inability to miniaturize and weaponize a nuclear bomb, according to Stratfor. They expect a few more scoldings or sanctions from the UN, and that’s about it. We’ll see what happens.

3) Growing Optimism About Technology and the Future

As we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, this blog has consistently forecast 2 things: 1) increasing public interest in technology and space, and 2) more optimistic public attitudes toward the future. There is evidence that, even 5 to 7 years out from the next Maslow Window and in the midst of the current global recession, both are appearing.

For example, the New York Times Magazine last Sunday (3/29/09; N. Dawidoff) featured an in-depth inteview with Princeton’s Nobel-caliber emeritus physicist Freeman Dyson, whose mind is still described by his colleagues as “infinitely smart” and “extraordinarily powerful.” He is profiled as a brilliant pro-technology scientist, who’s not comfortable with Gore-style climate crisis rhetoric. According to Dyson, “the climate-studies people who work with models…come to believe models are real and forget they are only models.” But the real global warming culprit is NASA scientist “Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers.” In a recent shift in public opinion, it appears the majority of Americans agree with Dyson; Gallup reports that only 38% think that global warming will have a major impact on their lives.

Another surprise was the current issue of Foreign Affairs (March/April, 2009) whose cover features a stunningly pro-technology article “Geoengineering the Climate?” In case Dyson and others are wrong, the article, by five legal, engineering, and public policy academics, favors albedo techniques to reject solar radiation and cool the Earth. In the style of volcanic eruptions, they suggest injecting sulfate aerosols or similar reflective materials into the upper atmosphere; the space-based reflective cloud technique of Roger Angel is not mentioned, despite the fact that it would be less invasive for the biosphere. Their technology-intensive bottomline is that “the option of geoengineering exists. It would be dangerous for scientists and policymakers to ignore it.”

In another pro-technology development, Gallup reports that “a majority of Americans have been supportive of the use of nuclear energy in the United States in recent years, but this year’s Gallup Environment Poll finds new high levels of support, with 59% favoring its use, including 27% who strongly favor it.” This mirrors beliefs expressed by University of Southern California engineering professor Najmedin Meshkati, at a public event in Orange County that I organized. While acknowledging concerns about nuclear wastes and life-cycle costs, Dr. Meshkati spoke of a “nuclear renaissance” due to increased reactor safety and environment-friendly energy.

Although it is not yet obvious what mix of technologies (e.g., solar, nuclear, others) is best to address future energy/environment challenges, the trend toward pro-technology solutions and optimistic public attitudes about the future is consistent with the last 200 years and especially with our forecasts of the 2015 Maslow WIndow.

4) No NASA Administrator

Space News has concerns about President Obama’s inaction regarding a new post-Griffin Administrator. In a March 30 editorial, they suggested that the candidate vetting and Senate confirmation processes could leave NASA leader-less “well into the second quarter of 2009.” The worry is about major near-term decisions — e.g., retirement date for the Shuttle and the 5-year gap — that will affect NASA well into the 2015 Maslow Window.

This situation is consistent with my January forecast that, despite Obama’s interest and support of NASA during the capaign, he will, of necessity, need to focus on the economy and national security. Therefore, NASA will simply not be a front-burner item early in his administration.

5) ABC News Explains the Theory of Maslow Windows!

The centerpiece of 21stCenturyWaves.com is the concept of a Maslow Window. These are decade-long intervals separated by 55 to 60 years, when major economic booms produce widespread affluence-induced ebullience. For most people, this triggers their ascent to higher levels in Maslow’s heirarchy, where major exploration and technology projects seem at least intriguing and often almost irresistible.

But why, over the last 200 years, have great explorations and macro-engineering projects not been favored by the public during the decades between Maslow Windows (e.g., 1970s, 80s, 90s)?

Gina Sunseri of ABC News (11/29/08) explains that “the space station is the most complicated engineering project ever undertaken, and astronauts are…accomplishing remarkable feats in space — but it is hard for most Americans to care much about the space program when they are worried about keeping their jobs, making house payments and putting food on the table.”

In other words, low levels on Maslow’s heirarchy just don’t make it. Thank you ABC News!