The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) in Chicago is the world’s arbiter of all things tall. They keep endless, ballistic statistics on tall buildings of all kinds, and make official, industry-recognized decisions about whose building is The One.

The 20 tallest buildings completed in 2011 point to a new 1960s-style “Golden Age” that’s just around the corner.
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For example, last month the CTBUH announced that the new One World Trade Center tower in New YorK City (at Ground Zero) might not become the tallest in the Western Hemisphere after all because the 408 foot antenna atop the building would not be enclosed in an architectural spire; according to the CTBUH, spires count, but antennas sans spires don’t (Wall Street Journal, C. Bialik, 5/12/12).

Indeed, such erigible esoterica is of considerable significance as we at 21stCenturyWaves.com continue our development of a global ebullience index.

This is because — over the last 200+ years — large Macro-Engineering Projects (e.g., Panama Canal) and Great Explorations (e.g., discovery of the N and S poles) appear to be triggered by large economic booms, but are fundamentally driven by “ebullience” (e.g., “Panama fever”, “pole mania”) — a somewhat irrational, but highly positive view of the future.

For example, In the 1960s Apollo program and Peace Corps of John F. Kennedy it was the ebullient feeling that we could do almost anything; in the early 20th century it was Theodore Roosevelt’s Panama fever and (north & south) pole mania; in the mid-19th century it was manifest destiny of James Polk and the central Africa adventures of Dr. Livingstone, I presume; and about 200 years ago it began auspiciously with Jefferson, Napoleon, and Lewis & Clark.

Earlier this year at the University of Southern California an internationally recognized architect confided to me that erecting tall buildings is usually more about egos than profits.

The CTBUH executive director agrees and the early abullience shown by Saudi plans for the first kilometer supertower — that bests the current tallest Burj Khalifa in Dubai by 500+ feet — and other recent extraordinay endeavors suggest we are indeed headed for a new 1960s-style “golden age”.

For example, in their annual review (for 2011) of tall building trends, the CTBUH noted:
1) 2011 continues the trend since 2007 that each successive year has more 200 meter+ buildings completed than ever before; this record-setting pace is now expected to continue even through the current great recession.

Looking to the future, it is now foreseeable – indeed likely – that the recent trend of an annual increase in building completions will continue for the next several years, perhaps even through the end of the decade. This represents a change in recent predictions. It had been expected that skyscraper completions would drop off very sharply after 2011, as a result of the 2008 global financial crisis and the large number of projects put on hold. Now however, due in large part to the continuing high activity of skyscraper design and construction in China, as well as the development of several relatively new markets, this global dip is no longer expected.

2) Global shifts in the locations of the top 100 buildings are significant. For example, Asia (with 46) is edging toward 50% of the all top 100 towers, and the Middle East increased by three, while Europe dropped to only one building in the top 100.

3) While China remains a dynamic market for 200 m+ buildings, its production declined from 33% in 2010 to only 26% in 2011, which indicates the market is diversifying. For example, Panama — site of one of the most ebullient MEPs in the world today: the Panama Canal Expansion Project — is enjoying a 200 m+ spurt:

Before 2008, no 200 m+ buildings existed in all of Panama. Then, between 2008 and 2010, three buildings opened. In 2011, Panama City completed ten 200 m+ skyscrapers, more than any other city and more than double the number of completions in all of North America. With these completions, there are now 12 such buildings in Panama, perhaps signaling a new day for the tall building in this region.

The CTBUH Summary for 2011 concludes by forecasting a decade-long surge in tall buildings around the globe.

With over 300 projects above the 200-meter mark currently under construction internationally, the tall building community is set to continue to develop at an incredible pace. As new markets continue to discover and develop the tall building, it is quite possible that this pace will continue through the end of this decade. Without a doubt, the skylines of the world will see tremendous change by the year 2020.

The tall building community sees beyond current global economic difficulties to a more ebullient 1960s-style “golden age” that will sparkle into the 2020s. It’s called the 2015 Maslow Window and will also feature the new international Space Age.

Yesterday famed filmaker James Cameron became the first human to go solo to the bottom of the Mariana Trench — 35,810 feet below sea level — the deepest place on the ocean floor.

Cameron’s space-inspired description of the Challenger Deep included “very lunar, a very desolate place, very isolated.”
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Cameron repeats a stunning feat first accomplished in 1960 — early in the Apollo Maslow Window — by the ocean’s most daring explorers, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh who first descended into the Challenger Deep, which is much farther (a mile+) below sea level than Mt. Everest is above it. Although unmanned submersibles have been there in recent times, until Cameron no human had risked the trip again.
Click: Nereus, Mohole, Apollo and the New Race to Space

Although Cameron and National Geographic view this voyage into inner space as an important scientific and engineering project, it’s also evidence of increasing “early ebullience” as we approach a new international Space Age expected by mid-decade.

Despite continuing economic challenges, early ebullience is evident around the world today — e.g., booming Antarctic tourism, architectural projects such as the Shanghai Tower, the Panama Canal Expansion Project, Spaceport America and the birth of the space tourism industry, the International Space Station (an “international marvel”), international plans for bases on the Moon.

One might ask the rather naive question of why — in this day of remotely operated vehicles (ROV) and telepresence — he risked the trip personally. After all Cameron did have to surface early because of hydraulic problems.

Patricia Fryer (University of Hawaii) gives the standard “scientific” explanation:

The critical thing is to be able to take the human mind down into that environment, to be able to turn your head and look around to see what the relationships are between organisms in a community and to see how they’re behaving—to turn off all the lights and just sit there and watch and not frighten the animals, so that they behave normally. That is almost impossible to do with an ROV.

While true, considering the ebullient entertainment instincts of Cameron, it reminds me of the NASA official who once pointed out that,

We don’t give tickertape parades to robots.

Widespread ebullience and an increasingly fractal geopolitical situation will fundamentally drive public interest in Apollo-style space spectaculars and briefly become the dominant global zeitgeist over the coming decade, as they did during the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window.

Recently the Kepler Science Team released the results of the first 16 months of searching for Earth-like planets around nearby Sunlike stars. A statistical analysis by Space Daily (John Rehling, March 8,2012) suggests that Earth-like planets are likely to be “extremely rare” in the Galaxy.

According to Space Daily, “the pessmistic characteristic of these results suggest that to find earth-like worlds elsewhere, we should prepare to look hard – and quite possibily very hard for decades if not centuries.”
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This is important because, to the public, the two most enticing drivers of human expansion into the Cosmos during the approaching new International Space Age are: 1) the discovery and exploration of Earth-like worlds, and 2) the prospects for extraterrestrial life, especially with intelligence.

The new Kepler data is consistent with analysis by JPL scientists Joseph Catanzarite and Michael Shao, that I discussed here, based on 4 months of Kepler data, but not with other more optimistic estimates.

Catanzarite and Shao — whose paper was accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal in 2011 — adopted an Earth Analog region characterized by a planet radius of 0.8 to 2 (Earth radii). The lower value corresponds to a mass of about 50% of Earth’s, the lower limit for retention of an oxygen atmosphere. The upper value is adopted by the Kepler scientists and, assuming Earth-like parameters, implies a planet with twice the surface heat flow of Earth and half Earth’s lithospheric thickness. Active plate tectonics and volcanism would be expected..

Catanzarite and Shao fit the Kepler transit data to power laws for both the planet radius and the scaled planet distance; they judge that the power laws are excellent fits to the data for distances from 0.2 AU to 0.5 AU (inside the HZ limits) and planetary radii from 2 to 4 (just larger than the EA range).

Using the power laws, the Kepler data set is then extrapolated into the Earth analog region defined above to obtain their estimate — based on the first 4 months of Kepler data — of the fraction of Sun-like stars likely to have Earth-analog planets: 2% +1.6%/-1.1%.

The addition of 12 more months of new Kepler data is summarizied in this table from Space Daily:
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Bins of planet radius versus bins of planet period, out to the habitable zone (Earth is 365 days) are shown here; planet frequency estimates are the product of actual observed numbers of planets times their de-bias factor. This compensates for Kepler bias towards close-in and larger planets in the data.

The Kepler data show that planets with nearly exactly one Earth mass (0.9-1.1) are most likely at periods of 4-8 days, well inside a Mercury-like orbit (88 days), and also 6 bins inside the habitable zone. These are hot planets.

We can make this data more comparable to the radius limits of Catanzarite and Shao by summing appropriate bins and extrapolating them to the right (to the habitable zone) using Rehling’s median factor (0.72) relating a bin’s frequency to that of the bin to its left.

The new value — based on 16 months of Kepler data — for the fraction of Sun-like stars with Earth-analog planets is about 3.6%. This is very close to Catanzarite and Shao’s previous result, and suggests strongly again that Earth-like planets are rare.

This latest Kepler analysis reinforces:

1) An updated, anthropic Drake Equation, suggesting that high intelligence is rare in our Galaxy.
Click: Kepler, Watson, and Gott Point to the Rare Earth Hypothesis,

and

2) The proposition that — in defense of high intelligence — space colonization should be a high priority for humanity.
Click: Is Earth Unique? What this “Benchmark Moment” Means for ETs and Our Future

Astronomer John Gribbin (Alone in the Universe; 2011) uses the latest astrophysics to make an impressive scientific case that we are alone in our Galaxy.

This is despite several hundred planets currently known to exist around nearby stars, and despite NASA’s recent discovery of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars, as well as the potential for billions of such worlds in our Galaxy of almost one trillion stars.

Even Gort and Klaatu (from “The Day the Earth Stood Still“; 1951) could learn a trick or two from the ultra-ETs — suggested by current astrophysics and physics — that might be visiting us today.
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Despite this “benchmark moment in the history of science” according to Berkeley astronomer Geoffrey Marcy (Wall Street Journal, 12/21/11), Gribbin traces the origin of human intelligence and civilization from the Big Bang to today, and shows that the odds of our development are so small that we are most likely the first high civilization to arise in the Milky Way.

For example, Gribbin points to the origin of the Moon by an impact with a Mars-size body over 4 billion years ago as a pivotal and yet very dicey event. The impact itself had to avoid destroying Earth’s spin (as apparently happened at Venus) and yet excavate and launch into space enough material to form an unusually large Moon that could gravitationally anchor Earth’s axial tilt. Without such a Moon our rotation axis would wobble chaotically due to tugs by Jupiter, Venus and other bodies, and undermine the long-term climate stability conducive to the development of high intelligence and civilization.

Last summer Howard A. Smith of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics also independently found ETs to be scarce in the Galaxy — in American Scientist (July-August, 2011) — as did I last March: Click HERE. I used an updated, anthropic version of the Drake Equation to show that unless a high-tech civilization lives for at least millions of years (highly unlikely) we are probably alone in the Galaxy.

However, other scientists hold contrary views. For example, as I noted in October, 2010:

Following scientific meetings in 2009 at the Vatican on Extraterrestrials, the prestigious UK Royal Society has had not just one, but 2 scientific meetings in 2010 (in January and just last week) to consider if exterrestrials are here on Earth and how to properly greet them.

This current growth of interest in ETs and Earth-like planets is part of a multi-century trend recognized by 21stCenturyWaves.com. It extends back to at least the 19th century and has presaged and figured prominently in each transformative Maslow Window since that time.

For example, just after the financial Panic of 1893 that ultimately led to “Panama fever” and “pole mania” of the early 20th century Maslow Window, it featured the founding of Lowell Observatory in Arizona to study evidence for a highly intelligent canal-building civilization on Mars. Early in the Apollo Maslow Window, Frank Drake began the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) almost a decade before humans first landed on the Moon in 1969.
For more see: “State of the Wave: ETs Surge to Center Stage.”

If we take Gribbin’s conclusion seriously for a moment, it has a number of intriguing implications for the cosmos, ETs, and our future:

1. If we are the first lofty civulization to develop in our Galaxy then radio SETI should not expect success, and we will never see interstellar Von Neumann machines in our vicinity. But the good news was envisioned by Marshall Savage in The Millennial Project (1992):

The stars are our destiny…Strewn like diamonds…All these treasures are free for the taking. There is no guardian genie. There are no alien owners to be bargained with, no evil empires to be vanquished…The galaxy is free and open now in a way it never will be again.

2. If there are no native ETs in our Galaxy, then UFOs may come from very far away — other galaxies or even other universes — and will require exotic transportation concepts (e.g., wormholes) to arrive here. This is a future that could begin tomorrow or may already be in progress, and was imagined — both the good and bad news — by Deardorff et al. in JBIS (2005):

While the ‘We are alone’ solution to Fermi’s paradox was once a seemingly valid one, this answer is now incompatible with the infinite universe and random self-sampling assumption consistent with inflation theory. We thus find ourselves in the curious position that current cosmological theory predicts that we should be experiencing extraterrestrial visitation…

The huge technological head start of the presumed ETs would still come as a great shock to many … The implication that we would be powerless relative to their presumed capabilities and evolutionary advantage may be most unwelcome … science would have difficulty coming to terms with the situation.

3. If there are no ETs from anywhere, then UFOs may originate from covert, terrestrial sources (e.g., secret military aircraft) and we have arrived in Jacques Vallee’s intriguing world of Messenger’s of Deception (1979):

UFOs may be a control system…there is a genuine technology at work here, causing the effects witnesses are describing. But I am not ready to jump to the conclusion that it is … some kind of “spacemen.”

The social, political, and religious consequences of the (UFO) experience are enormous … over the timespan of a generation… Is the public being deceived and led to false conclusions by someone who is using UFO witnesses to propagate … social conditioning?

and

4. Gribbin’s conclusion scientifically elevates human civilization to the pinnacle of the Galaxy which has important implications for both space colonization and theology:

My view is that while life itself may be common, the kind of intelligent, technological civilization that has emerged on Earth may be unique, at least in our Milky Way Galaxy…

Whether or not you see the hand of God in any of this, it would mean that we are the most technnologically advanced civilization in the Universe, and the only witnesses with an understanding of the origin and nature of the Universe itself.

The New York Times featured a penetrating op-ed last Sunday (8/14/2011) by Neal Gabler of USC, who auggests the answer is yes.

The “Big Bang Theory” is now a popular American television sitcom, but in 1927 it was a Big Idea based on the work of Albert Einstein (below) and Edwin Hubble.
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Gabler perused the so-called “14 Biggest Ideas of the Year,” (e.g., “The Players Own the Game”) in The Atlantic (July/August, 2011) and came away forlorn that they were only “observations” not really Big Ideas. Big ideas not only connect the dots but they “change the ways we look at and think about the world.”

Examples of Big ideas include “the end of history,” “the Big Bang theory, and “the medium is the message.”

Gabler frets that we are in the “Post-Idea World”…

a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé.

It appears that the “Age of Information” is part of the problem.

Courtesy of the Internet, we seem to have immediate access to anything that anyone could ever want to know … It may seem counterintuitive that at a time when we know more than we have ever known, we think about it less.

One Big Idea not mentioned by Gabler is “the colonization of space,” including human settlement and utilization of the solar system. If we apply Gabler’s point, is it possible that endless trivial information — especially via social media — stifles thought and serves as a distraction from the next step in human expansion?

A similar idea was advanced in 2003 by Marina Benjamin.

Since the death of the space program (!), frustrated would-be space travelers have taken refuge in cyberspace – another form of pop culture — where they now focus most of their “cosmic” energies.

Perhaps Gabler’s most serious concern is that America, in particular, lives in a “post-Enlightenment age,”

in which rationality, science, evidence, logical argument and debate have lost the battle in many sectors, and perhaps even in society generally, to superstition, faith, opinion and orthodoxy.

We often see this prominently displayed in the political arena where some advocate policies that run counter to decades of historical experience and scientific evidence, especially in areas like economics, business, and climate change.

Therefore, space colonization — excruciatingly dependent on high technology and science — might seem threatened by our post-Idea/post-Enlightenment world.

As we struggle to recover from the Great Recession that began in 2008, many are unaware that we also live within only a few years of the next stunning, 1960s-style Maslow Window, complete with unprecedented commercial and scientific adventures in space and an ebullient, Camelot-style zeitgeist.

Fortunately for us, patterns over the last 200+ years indicate these “golden ages” are not triggered by a widespead intellectual reawakening — but by major economic booms, such as the JFK Boom during the 1960s. Affluence-induced ebullience elevates many in society to higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy where their expanded worldviews make great explorations and large technology projects seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible.

Gabler laments that, “our current style of thinking no longer deploys the techniques of rational thought.” But, as in the 1960s, this will rapidly change as we strive to compete globally in the new Space Age. New energy sources will be developed, new worlds will be glimpsed, and genuine education reforms will transform newly motivated students.

In reality, the Maslow Window is the natural antidote to our current condition.

An intriguing multi-century trend in popular culture is the resurgence of broad interest in all things related to intelligent extraterrestrials — including potentially UFOs and the search for Earth-like planets — as we approach a new Maslow WIndow.

See: “The Klaatu Effect Signals an Accelerating Cultural Focus on Space.”

This weekend’s 2011 MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) Symposium in Irvine, California provided an irresistible opportunity to become immersed in the early 21st century world of UFOlogy and ascertain its long-term status.

Instead of its usual focus on examining UFO sightings, the theme of the 2011 MUFON Symposium is: ET Contact: The Implications for Science and Society.
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At the tony Hyatt Regency hotel just across the famous 405 freeway (“Carmageddon”) from the John Wayne Airport, the cost of attendance probably held the crowd down somewhat. For example, the main lecture room held an estimated 800 seats, and during the main presentation of the day (Richard Dolan), it was only about 2/3 full. But given the state of the economy that’s still not bad.

In addition to the main lectures which began Friday evening with astronaut Story Musgrave, the MUFON event featured 50 interesting vendors — including the celebrated abductee Travis Walton offering autographs — with many tempting books and other ET-related treasures, a concise but enjoyable UFO/ET art show, and a small, semi-secret-but-fun UFO/ET film festival. Definitely an impressive cultural event!

Dolan’s a well-known UFO historian and theorist who previously was a Rhodes Scholar finalist. His books come highly recommended so I expected a good show — and wasn’t disappointed.

Dolan’s stunning belief is that there exists a “secret space program” that he’s convinced will eventually become known to the public. He sees evidence for anomalous activities in space, including unidentified objects in Earth orbit (recorded during Shuttle missions), images of unknown bases on the Moon, and seemingly artificial structures on Mars (Cydonia). This, plus an estimated annual federal black budget of $ ~50 B (about 1/3 of the total cost of the Apollo Moon program), suggests to him the real possibility of a momentous program that may already include humans on Mars and routine interactions with ETs!

Regardless of its merits, Dolan’s story meets the criterion of an extraordinary vision of intelligent ETs as we approach within only a few years of the 2015 Maslow Window and the new International Space Age.

The afternoon session began with a puzzling presentation by John Alexander, Ph.D. who was expected to chat about “The Federal Government and Military Response to ET Contact,” but seemed more intent on offering counterpoints to most of Dolan’s talk. Alexander is a former Army colonel with apparently extensive government contacts.

After Alexander’s presentation, it would have been more satisfying to the audience to bring back Rich Dolan for a 2-person panel discussion with Alexander, including audience participation.

But more importantly, MUFON seems to have adopted the basic philosophy of the Vatican and the UK’s Royal Society toward ETs, — i.e., ETs probably exist and may be coming here, so the question is: How do we accommodate them?

Happy Birthday America !

Independence Day fireworks NASA-style as the Discovery launches on July 4, 2006
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It’s wonderful to celebrate the Declaration of Independence issued on July 4 in 1776. In particular we celebrate its most famous clause:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Today we believe that Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness will be inceasingly experienced around the globe as humans expand into the cosmos.

And, although the U.S. continues to experience significant economic uncertainty as well as the bittersweet last launch of the Space Shuttle this Friday, it’s clear that — on Earth and in Space –

“The Future Still Belongs to America,” according to Walter Russell Mead (WSJ, 7/2/11).

According to Professor Mead:

The geopolitics are favorable and the ideological climate is warming. But on a still-deeper level this is shaping up to be an even more American century than the last …

The is because the mega-trend of the 21st century is a “wave of change.”

Scientific and technological revolutions trigger economic, social, and political upheavals … In a century of accelerating change, the United States is better positioned to adapt than China, Europe, or the Arab world.

Wall Street’s Robert Doll (WSJ, 6/4/11) concurs that America’s edge is its “faster population growth, companies that are global in scope, and a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

We are still the source of technological innovation and home to the greatest universities and the most creative businesses.

These assessments are consistent with long-term macroeconomic data and global trends that point to an approaching global economic boom which should trigger a new international Space Age by 2015.

Enjoy the fireworks!!

1960s-style economic booms appear to be the triggers of great explorations from Lewis and Clark to Apollo, as well as the largest macro-engineering projects from the Suez Canal to Apollo.

That’s the extraordinary lesson of the last 200+ years.

However, Helmut Gaus asks if our prosperity is fundamentally more a matter of human psychology than just economics?
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Gaus, a professor of political science at the University of Ghent in Belgium, has spent decades documenting an “Anxiety Wave,” which is the inverse of the better known long economic wave. According to Gaus (Why Yesterday Tells of Tomorrow, 2003)

If we scan two centuries of European history … a certain number of cultural-historical and mental changes show the same cyclic course as Kondratiev’s (economic) long wave. Not all of them can be as easily followed back to fluctuations in the market … On the face of it, these currents indicate an increase and decrease in the level of anxiety in society, with peaks and low points that correspond with the peaks and lows of Kondratiev’s long wave.

If Gaus is correct, the Maslow Window expected near 2015 (plus all those of the last 200+ years) is caused directly by the mass psychology of an “ascending phase” of the long economic wave.

In a descending long wave, in a period of increasing uncertainty and existential anxiety, the keynote of the state of mind of a whole population is different from that in an ascending phase of the same long wave, in which self-assurance and self-confidence and all other states of mind that are typical of this begin to get the upper hand.

Gaus bases his Anxiety Wave on “the best documented mass phenomenon that appears to be the subtlest indicator of the collective unconscious in our Western world”: women’s fashion. For example, Gaus has identified a yellow/orange fashion metric that’s apparently indicative of a positive mind set, as indicated in Figure 2. Notice that the index ascends during the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window until about 1968, when it begins a steep descent until the mid-1970s. Its decline continues more gently into the 1990s.

Fig. 2. According to Gaus, from 1956 to 2000 the bright color scheme (of yellow/orange) in women’s fashions indicates a “happiness wave” consistent with long waves in the economy
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If it is real, we’d expect that Gaus’ fashion-based Anxiety Wave — the inverse of the “happiness wave” shown above in Fig. 2 — would correlate well with unemployment; and it does, see Fig. 3. Notice how anxiety and unemployment decline during the 1960s Maslow Window until about 1968, and then begin a steady rise until the mid-1980s.

Fig. 3. Unemployment in Germany from 1956 to 2000 correlates well with Gaus’ fashion-based Anxiety Wave.
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Although the number of marriages (in the Netherlands) is inversely correlated with the Anxiety Wave, the mean age of the mother at the birth of her first child (in Germany) from 1956 to 2000 is directly correlated. As anxiety drops during the 1960s Maslow Window so does the mean age until about 1970 when both reverse and begin an upward trend.

Fig. 4. The mean age of a mother at the birth of her first child (in Germany) declined until 1968 and increased thereafter.
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Even astrology correlates with Gaus’ Anxiety Wave. The end of the 1960s Maslow Window near 1968 triggers a steep increase in the number of books on astrology in German and British libraries, which levels off in the mid-1980s.

Fig. 5. Apparently astrology comforted an increasing number of people (in Germany and the UK) after the 1960s Maslow Window ended near 1968.
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Because human anxiety is very difficult to measure, especially on a mass basis, Gaus’ data does not prove that an Anxiety Wave exists or that it drives the long economic wave (e.g. Kondratiev Wave). However, it does provide intriguing evidence of rhythmic, twice-per-century fluctuations of significant non-economic parameters in society, that correlates well with long-term economic trends.

Dimitri Maex at DoubleThink.com suggests that in addition to fashion, search engines might work too…

The idea that fluctuations in the economy are caused by the collective levels of anxiety is interesting but hard to prove. Data on the mental state of society is scarce, which is why Gaus used data on fashion as a proxy. There is however a relatively new data source that holds exteremely rich informatoion on what’s on people’s minds – it’s the data held by search engines. Knowing what people search on and how that changes over time could potentially lead to a barometer of society’s mental state.

Gaus boldly ends his book with 20 future behavioral trends, including the major economic boom of 2015 that is expected to trigger the next 1960s-style Maslow Window and the new international Space Age.

It was a real pleasure being part of the International Space Development Conference (ISDC 2011) Space Business Track chaired by Clifford McMurray.

My presentation (not quite stand alone) is available here:
CLICK Cordell.EconomicBooms.ISDC.2011

Thanks to Cliff for making it a smooth event.

The symbol of the 1960s Apollo Moon program — the magnificent 363 foot tall Saturn V launch vehicle, designed by Wernher von Braun and his team at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville — is on display at Huntsville’s impressive U.S. Space & Rocket Center.
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Just a few comments on my presentation: “Economic Booms and Apollo-style Exploration.”

1) This approach — long-term, empirical, global — is really different and leads to new ideas about the future of near-term large-scale space initiatives.

2) Standard Chartered Bank’s “Super-Cycles” chart (showing GDP growth per year: 1820 to present) is remarkable in the way it highlights that the growth Super-Cycles ending in 1913 and 1973 both ended abruptly. Both Super-Cycles also culminated in spectacular Maslow Windows (explained below) — that abruptly ended — including the 1960s Apollo Moon program. The new growth Super-Cycle apparently began in 2000 and is consistent with the next Maslow Window opening near 2015. The long business cycle discovered in 1989 is consistent with the timing of Maslow Windows, as are K-Waves and the generational cycles of Strauss and Howe.

3) The Maslow Window economic model connects to human psychology through the Maslow hierarchy: as the economic boom results in widespread affluence, many become ebullient and are catapulted to higher Maslow states where their expanded worldviews make great explorations and MEPs seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible. As ebullience decays — due to a war and/or the slowing boom — the Maslow Window collapses (e.g., during the late 1960s).

4) Maslow Windows can also be thought of as “critical states” attained through self-organization of the complex international economic/technology/geopolitical system. The fact that — over the last 200+ years — great explorations and MEPs display punctuated equilibria is strong prima facie evidence for their being Self Organized Criticality (SOC) phenomena. The size-frequency distribution of wars already points to their being SOC phenomena; a similar study of NASA programs and MEPs is ongoing and is expected to show the same result.

5) Although Maslow Windows appear to be critical states, they do have observable near-critical signatures. For example, 3 of 4 Maslow Windows (over the last 200 years) have financial panics (e.g., Panic of 2008), great recessions, and major economic booms (e.g., the 1960s JFK Boom) in sequence during the decade prior to the opening of the Maslow Window. Non-economic early signatures include dangerous conflicts like the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).

6) To be viable, space exploration programs during the next 15-20 years must be “Great Explorations” possibly involving Mars, and they must culminate before 2025. In particular, their viability will be enhanced by early self-sufficiency in deep space. Several recently proposed programs have these characteristics…

Here are a few great space-related Huntsville locations I encountered on this trip. (All images by B. Cordell.)

At the U.S. Space and Rocket Center:
Here’s a Lockheed A-12, the precursor of the SR-71 Blackbird. It’s max speed was 2,210 mph (Mach 2.25) at 75,000 feet. It was retired in 1968.
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The Rocket Garden at the USS&RC is spectacular and includes an X-15, V-2, and many others.
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At the Von Braun Astronomical Society Observing Site.
Here’s the entry to VBAS in Monte Sano State Park near Huntsville at about 1600 feet above SL. They have 21″ and 16″ telescopes and the Von Braun planetarium.
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i just returned from the Saturday evening VBAS planetarium show and observing session with the 16″ and 8″ telescopes. It’s a wonderful, inspirational, historic place. Melissa (VBAS Board Member), Megan (UAH engineering student), and Gert (member of original German rocket team) did a super job. I highly recommend the experience.

At the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).
The Von Braun Research Hall is the highlight of the UAH engineering complex.
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Inside the VBRH are 2 historic and inspirational murals. The first is of Von Braun (just left of center) receiving a 1960s-style hero’s welcome.
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And the other is of the whole German rocket team that moved to Huntsville in 1949, and proceeded to change the world.
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SPECIAL THANKS to the UAH Campus Police who were kind enough to give me access to the interior of the VBRH today, so I could obtain the last 2 images.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal (5/6/11; J. Hookway) featured a grabby, partly tongue-in-cheek page 1 piece about strange events in Asia. “Alien Signtings Go Into Hyperdrive” — this time in Thailand — reminded me of the Klaatu Effect.

In the 1950s traffic was so bad in Washington that not even an interstellar spacecraft could find a place to park. Apparently, now the problem’s spread to Asia.
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According to the Mutual UFO Network in Colorado,

Since the slump in the Western banking system in 2008, UFO sightings among Asia’s fast-growing economies have accelerated. Suspicious UFOs have shut down airports in China, buzzed resorts in Borneo and lti up the night sky in Myanmar.

However, the action in Thailand is strangely familiar. For example, dozens of UFO enthusiasts — e.g., medical students, interior decorators, others — routinely camp out at their own personal “Stargate” to experience UFOs and their effects. One participant explains that,

When we meditate we can understand what they’re trying to tell us — we feel it through our bodies and we understand.

An American medical doctor in Thailand says he had his first UFO encounter in 1996 on the phone with an alien from Mars. The ET said “not to worry about the phone bill.” Now he sees them all the time.

They warn of natural disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami or political upheavals …

Other UFO investigators in Thailand believe they communicate with UFO aliens telepathically, and one army sergeant claims to have channeled ETs.

Then an alien voice spoke to us through the sergeant and told us he was there to help human beings reach the next level of development.

This is a replay of a UFO-related subculture that developed in the U.S. and elsewhere during the 1950s and 1960s, before and during the Apollo Maslow Window. Although seemingly with loose screws and easily dismissed, you can read about their cultural impact in computer scientist Jacques Vallee’s intriguing book, Messengers of Deception.

It suggests we may be approaching an affluent, ebullient time with a cultural focus on space, not seen since the 1960s.

In the 1950s, the medical doctor above would have been called a “contactee.” Alleged telepathic communications and warnings of threatening natural and political events were common. From 1953 until 1973, the famous contactee George Van Tassel, who was reportedly a flight test engineer for Howard Hughes, organized large, public UFO conventions — featuring all of the above — in the Southern California desert at Giant Rock (near Landers, CA).

During the early 1960s UFOs became so respectable that one contactee, Gabriel Green, ran for the U.S. Senate from California and received 171,000 votes in the primaries (M. Sachs, The UFO Encyclopedia, 1980).

About 5 years ago while casually perusing the UFOCAT (Center for UFO Studies), a computerized list of UFO sightings from 1946 to 2000, I noticed that UFO sightings were reported worldwide, including Europe, the UK, and North America. Athough they were plentiful from 1947 through the 1950s and 1960s, they petered out after 1973. The timing is coincident with the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window and the preceding decade.

Assuming the UFOCAT was accurate and complete, I still didn’t know if people were actually seeing more UFOs before 1973 than after, or if media reports were artificially stimulating the phenomenon. But I unofficially started calling this the “Klaatu Effect,” after the magnificent space alien in the original movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951).

The current Klaatu Effect involves more than Bay Area-style UFO enthusiasts in Asia. For example, Dr. Lynne Kitei, a well-known physician and educator, discussed UFOs recently on Fox News Channel. She’s played a major role drawing attention to the extraordinary Phoenix Lights UFO sightings of March, 1997. They have been compared to one of the most intriguing mass witness UFO events ever: the Washington National Airport UFO sightings of 1952, when reportedly several UFOs flew in formation over the White House on consecutive weekends.