David Ashford of Bristol Spaceplanes Limited, says the answer is “Yes!” assuming development of airplane-like, reusable launchers or “spaceplanes” by the UK; see Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (Vol. 62, No. 10, pp. 354-361). He believes the UK can become a leader because of it’s long history with rocket fighter technology, and by being (somewhat inadvertantly!) well-positioned to take advantage of the prevailing expendable launcher mind-set.

Does the Saunders Roe Rocket Fighter of 1957 hold the secret to the new Space Age? Click

Ashford’s article is particularly interesting because of his: 1) advocacy of this near-term aviation approach to space access, 2) presentation of a roadmap showing how the UK could become its leader, and 3) sketch of the “new space age” — which is compatible with the anticipated 2015 Maslow Window — in terms of markets and an approximate timeframe.

Spaceplanes are Exciting

Spaceplanes should be able to significantly reduce the cost of access to space (by at least 2 orders of magnitude) and were studied over 40 years ago. For example, the USAF/NASA X-15 rocket plane (1959-68) became “the first fully reusable spacefaring vehicle.” Although suborbital, the X-15 set many altitude and speed records. Two X-15 flights went above 100 km (both in 1963 with Joe Walker) and Pete Knight reached 4519 mph (Mach 6.70) in 1967. Neil Armstrong — the first human on the Moon in 1969 — flew seven X-15 missions.

A happy Neil Armstrong poses with his X-15 rocket plane. Click .

Early in the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window, the X-15 had a major impact on pop culture through a 1961 movie of the same name that featured videos of actual X-15 flights; it’s still available on Amazon.com. Directed by Richard Donner (e.g., “Superman”, “Lethal Weapon”, “Maverick”), several of the movie’s stars remain well-known today, including Charles Bronson, Mary Tyler Moore, and James Gregory.

Instead of spaceplanes, Cold War time pressures (the “space race”) and the need to minimize costs led to the use of converted expendable ballistic missiles, including ICBMs (e.g., Atlas), to launch early satellites and humans into space.

The UK’s Advantages

Ashford argues that the UK’s 1950s experience developing the Saunders Roe SR.53, a prototype for a mixed jet and rocket propulsion fighter, indicates that a program for a small suborbital spaceplane (the “Ascender) “does not need any new technology.” The Ascender would reach Mach 3 on its way to 100 km altitude. It would carry one pilot and one passenger (or experiment) and have 2 HTP and kerosene rocket engines (for lift-off and ascent) and 2 jet engines (for back-up). The suborbital Ascender could be used for astronaut training, technology development, and science, as well as “carrying passengers on space experience flights.”

The second UK advantage is psychological. Because the “main obstacle” to a spaceplane approach to space access is

the mind-set induced by five decades of expendable launchers. The UK is probably best placed to break from this mold of thinking because it has no significant commitment to expendable launchers or human spaceflight using these for transportation.

If the government were to match industry to fund the entry-level spaceplane, the UK could lead the way to the new space age.

Although these are clearly marketing talking points for Ashford’s firm, they also display admirable ebullient qualities characteristic of the approaching 2015 Maslow Window and may be of real strategic value to near-term human expansion into the cosmos.

The New Space Age

Ascender would be followed by a first-generation orbital spaceplane called “Spacecab” — a one ton payload-class (e.g., up to 6 astronauts), two-stage-to-orbit, piloted, horizontal take-off and landing vehicle. Spacecab could launch satellites, deliver crew and supplies to space stations and beyond, and take thrilled passengers to space hotels. It would make routine maintenance and use of space stations more economical and contribute technology and operational expertise to the development of reusable, less expensive heavy lift vehicles.

Ashford indicates that the routine use of spaceplanes will result in space losing its “exceptionalism” because “access to orbit will become routine.”

Reusable space tugs would be used for higher orbits, and these could be readily adapted as lunar transfer vehicles … The cost of the first lunar base would be about 10 times less with this approach then it would have been with Constellation. Ten times! …

The cost of science in space will approach that in Antarctica …The term “new space age” is becoming recognized as a suitable name for this radically improved space scenario.

Although our (Ashford’s and my) concepts for the new space age are defined somewhat differently, they are likely to amount to the same thing, so it’s interesting to compare timescales. He shows the spaceplane road map culminating with Spacebus in about 15 years, and the New Space Age itself beginning about 7 years earlier.

Thus Ashford’s New Space Age might start sometime between 2018 and 2020 if spaceplane development began within the next 2 years. Based on macroeconomic data and historical patterns of the last 200 years — including current global trends — the next Maslow Window should open near 2015 and close around 2025.

Definitely the same ballpark.

In Chicago this weekend mainly to catch Freeman Dyson’s speech tonight at ISDC 2010, as well as visit relatives in both Chicagoland and up the sparkling west coast of Michigan. Incidentally, I flew into O’Hare Friday from San Diego. While still on the ground in Southern California, the pilot warned that we were taking on an hour’s worth of extra gas in case President Obama landed as we arrived, because we’d have to do circles in the sky. As it turned out, we only had to do them on the ground because he landed before us. I got a glimpse of Air Force One in it’s solo security mode a few runways away from us as we taxied in. But I was on the wrong side of our plane, so I couldn’t get you an image for this post. Sorry.

Mary recommends the view from Adler Planetarium of the spectacular Chicago skyline. Click .

I did happily connect with Mary Cordell Kulberg, whose grandfather is the brother of my grandfather; she took me on a tour of the sensational Adler Planetarium on the shores of Lake Michigan. Not so incidentally, both our grandfathers came to the U.S. from Germany in the 1890s just before the Peary/Panama/T. Roosevelt Maslow Window — perhaps the most ebullient decade in U.S. history. They were smart, because the Maslow Window concept itself was still a century in the future!

The Adler Planetarium offers one of the most beautiful settings in the world as you can see above. Having grown up just a few hours up the Michigan coast, Adler was the first major planetarium I ever saw. It made a lasting impression and is always a special place to me, but it has changed dramatically. For example, it has expanded in all directions to take advantage of the spectacular Lake Michigan and City views, as well as featuring excellent state-of-the-art shows on the cosmos.

Who could resist Whoopi Goldberg offering us a tour of the stars? (Neither Mary nor I could.) Click .

Since 2000, two important events have influenced Adler. One is that Boeing moved their world headquarters to Chicago. Another is that astronaut Jim Lovell became a major donor to the planetarium. Most of the upper level of Adler is now devoted to interactive, futuristic space displays funded largely by Boeing, as well as an inspiring exposition of Lovell’s life.

An impressive statue of Jim Lovell adorns the area to the right of Adler’s main entrance. Click .

Jim Lovell is one of the most famous astronauts in history. Known mostly for Apollo 13, he was also Command Module pilot on Apollo 8 in 1968, humanity’s first voyage to the Moon’s vicinity. On Christmas Eve from lunar orbit the Apollo 8 crew read the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis on a live television broadcast; at the time, it was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8 and 13 gave him the distinction of being one of only 3 humans to go to the Moon twice, and the only one of the three to not land.

Several inspiring exhibits feature Lovell’s life from his childhood through college and his astronaut career, including interesting details about his Earth orbital flight on Gemini XII with future Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. One of our favorites is an animated robot who is only too happy to demonstrate the hazards (e.g., radiation, meteorites) of being unprotected on the Moon’s surface, while Lovell explains the advantages of a lunar base. The lake-side of the Upper Level is devoted to hands-on exhibits by Boeing designed mostly for kids, although we enjoyed them too.

Whether you’re a parent, a child, or someone interested in the human future in space, Adler is definitely the place to go if you want to learn about why the new international space age — due to arrive by 2015 — will be so exciting.

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day; those in the service — present and past — deserve our thanks!

Greece’s “financial meltdown” has again brought into question the firmly held Keynesian belief that you can spend your way to prosperity. According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial (5/10/10), “Greek politicians in particular lived beyond their means … Europe isn’t experiencing a currency crisis. It’s a debt crisis driven by overborrowing, large and inefficient government, and insufficient economic growth.”

Europe’s crisis suggests that big government policies being enacted in the U.S. may delay the return to prosperity here too.

Over the last 200 years, prosperity is the hallmark of every Maslow Window from Apollo all the way back to Lewis and Clark, and is expected to drive the approach to ebullience near 2015. It’s clear that prosperity enhances the financial feasibility of typical macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal; Apollo). What’s not so obvious is that their political feasibility is momentarily ensured by affluence-induced ebullience that elevates many in society to higher states of Maslow’s hierarchy. And the large international audiences typically riveted by great explorations — e.g., the still-famous, mid-19th century greeting of Henry Stanley in central Africa, “Dr. Livingstone I presume?” — are enabled largely by the same effect.

Prosperity Is a Technological Imperative
The connection between prosperity and superpower status was emphasized recently by Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (WSJ, 3/25/10),

When Europeans after World War II chose to skimp on defense and spend lavishly on social welfare, they abdicated their claims to great power status. That worked out well for them because their security was subsidized by the U.S..

But what happens if the U.S. switches spending from defense to social welfare? Who will protect what used to be known as the “Free World”? … it will be increasingly hard to be globocop and nanny state at the same time.

Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman (2005) expands the point to explicitly include space, “A rising average income allows a country to project its national interest abroad, or send a man to the Moon.”

Political scientist and blogger Thomas Barnett likes to refer to the U.S. as the Leviathan. In 2009 we spent as much on defense ($ 660 B) as the rest of the world combined. But major entitlement programs currently cost 35% of GNP, about twice that of defense.

It takes exceptional mental prowess to remember when U.S. entitlement spending initially exceeded defense (in 1976). And Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have expanded “dramatically” since then. ObamaCare will accelerate the trend.

Prosperity is a Moral Imperative
In his monumental book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (2005), Harvard economics professor Benjamin Friedman presents the case for prosperity as a moral imperative.

Even in America, I believe, the quality of our democracy -– more fundamentally, the moral character of American society – is similarly at risk.

He shows that economic growth, rather than just the level of living standards is the key to political and social liberalization around the world as well as in the U.S.. Merely being rich is no protection against society’s retreat into rigidity and intolerance.

Periods of economic expansion in America and elsewhere, during which most citizens had reason to be optimistic, have also witnessed greater openness, tolerance, and democracy. To repeat: such advances occur for many reasons. But the effect of economic growth versus stagnation is an important and often central part of the story.

Friedman’s comments mirror the general trends of the long economic wave which peaked most recently in the late 1960s, declined into the 1990s, and should ignite another Kennedy-style long boom by 2015:

The central economic question for the United States at the outset of the twenty-first century is whether the nation in the generation ahead will again achieve increasing prosperity, as in the decades following World War II, or lapse back into the stagnation of living standards for the majority of our citizens that persisted from the early 1970s until the early 1990s … But even the prosperity … in the late 1990s bypassed large parts, in some important dimensions a clear majority, of the country’s citizens …

So for most people, it is persistent real growth in wages and low unemployment that trigger the twice-per-century Maslowian ebullience which momentarily creates broad public approval of great explorations and MEPs like Apollo in the 1960s — and the new international space age expected near 2015.

And in addition to its profound technological impact on society, prosperity is also a moral imperative that historically results in more openness, tolerance, and democracy thoughout the world.

Despite our current circumstances, there is every reason to believe that the 2015 Maslow Window will be the best of both worlds.

This weekend ASU physicist Paul Davies celebrated the 50th anniversary of astronomer Frank Drake’s “start of the most ambitious scientific experiment in history”: the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI); (Wall Street Journal; 4/10/10). On April 8, 1960 Drake, using the 85 foot radio telescope at Green Bank, WV, became the first to listen for signals from intelligent space aliens. But it’s been a long drought. According to Davies,

After five decades of patient listening, however, all the astronomers have to show for it is an eerie silence. Does that mean we are alone in the universe after all? Or might we be looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time?

After 50 years of SETI, why hasn’t ET phoned home yet?
Click .

As I suggested last August, it appears that public interest in intelligent space aliens is modulated by the long economic wave. For example, Drake’s ideas about SETI gained favor as the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window was taking off, as did Carl Sagan’s extraordinary assertion in a respected scientific journal (Planetary & Space Science, May, 1963) that space aliens could come here (and probably had already done so) in real interstellar spaceships and would be aided by relativisitic time dilation!

Likewise, during the decade just prior to the Peary/Panama/Roosevelt Maslow Window — about 2 long waves ago — polymath Percival Lowell founded his observatory in Arizona to study the canals on Mars which he believed were most likely “the work of some sort of intelligent beings” (to the Boston Scientific Society, 1894). And the Guzman Prize offered a lot of cash to anyone who could document contact with ETs — but they couldn’t be from Mars because that was considered too easy!

For more, see: Kepler, Carl Sagan, and the Guzman Prize — Our Century-Long Search for Space Aliens.

The search for extraterrestrial life is a primary driver of human expansion into the cosmos. Indeed, the 50 years since Drake’s seminal observations (nearly one long wave later) have motivated Davies’ analysis and can be expected to lead to increasing public and scientific interest in this fascinating topic — as occurred previously in the 1960s and early in the 20th century — during our approach to the 2015 Maslow Window.

Davies notes that the discovery, during the last decade, of 400+ extra-solar planets and the existence of terrestrial microbes that survive harsh, extraterrestrial-like environments have encouraged many scientists to believe that “the universe is teeming with life, and that some planets could harbor intelligent organisms.” (During the ebullient 1960s, astronomer Carl Sagan maintained there might be “a million technical civilizations in our Galaxy alone.”) And although NASA supported SETI for a while, government funding was canceled in 1993 — near the counter-ebullient long wave trough — because the “giggle factor” made it politically untenable. Today, SETI is privately funded by Paul Allen, Gordon Moore, and others.

Advanced space aliens may use spectacular globular clusters like M13 as galactic “coffee houses.” Click .
Copyright 2002 Michael Richmann

Fifty years of radio silence suggests to Davies that “By focusing on radio signals, the search for intelligent life has been extremely limited.” Although not mentioned by Davies, in 1974 Drake himself — after hearing nothing for only 14 years — engaged in “active” SETI by using the 1000-foot Arecibo radio telescope to beam a message directly toward M13, a globular star cluster. M13 has a million stars but is among the oldest objects in the Galaxy (~12 billion years) and is unlikely to have many surviving Sun-like stars (who die after 10 billion years) or Earth-like planets. But interstellar migration by advanced space aliens and/or construction of Dyson Spheres might give Drake’s beam a ray of hope, although it won’t arrive at M13 for 25,000 years! (In 25,000 years, our superluminal descendants may actually gather at M13 to celebrate the beam’s arrival!)

But not everyone’s thrilled about active SETI. For example, Michael Michaud, member of the SETI Study Group, International Academy of Astronautics, complains that,

Active SETI is not scientific research. It is a deliberate attempt to provoke a response by an alien civilization whose capabilities, intentions, and distance are not known to us. That makes it a policy issue.

Nevertheless several radio messages have been deliberately beamed to nearby stars as recently as 2009. “A Message From Earth,” sent in 2008 toward Gliese 581, should be the first one to ever reach its target in 2029.

Coincidentally, George Dyson, the son of Freeman Dyson (of Dyson Sphere fame among many other extraordinary things) once interviewed physicist Edward Teller (in J. Brockman, Ed., 2010) about contacting ETs. He felt that radio searches would have limited success because any message transmitted between ET civilizations “will be encoded, so it won’t be intelligible to us. It will look like noise.” But like Drake, Teller favored globular clusters. The Galaxy’s large size (100,000 light years diameter) and long radio signal travel times suggest the much smaller globular clusters are better targets. According to Teller, “if there is interstellar communication at all, it must be in the globular clusters.”

Davies concludes with this ebullient comment worthy of the approaching Maslow Window, an expected golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology,

We have no evidence whatsoever for any life beyond Earth, let alone intelligent life. It could be that life’s origin was a tremendous fluke, and that we are alone after all. But the consequences of discovering that other intelligences exist, or have existed, are so momentous it seems worth taking a penetrating look at how we could uncover evidence for it.

This Post is by:
Rachel Nishimura and Dr. Bruce Cordell

Waiting patiently until 2015 for the next Maslow Window — a twice-per-century golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology featuring unprecedented human expansion into the cosmos — is not as easy as it sounds. In fact, last September in an exciting example of “early ebullience,” two MIT students created their own exploration event in the direction of space itself (Wired, 9/15/09)

Is Mars already becoming the “People’s Planet”? Click

Using just a weather balloon, styrofoam beer cooler, cheap Canon A470 compact camera,
instant hand warmers, and a GPS cellphone — all for less than $150 — Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh built a space camera that took photos of the Earth’s surface from 93,000 feet! An 8-GB memory card stored images during the 5-hour flight until the rig was recovered following its 40 minute fall to Earth.

Grassroots projects — if you can call the stratosphere “grassroots” — like Lee’s and Yeh’s, all the way up to major sponsored competitions like Google’s Lunar Prize, suggest we’re rapidly approaching an Apollo era zeitgeist.

If you want to join the ebullient fun and build your own space camera, get instructions from Lee and Yeh here.

More recently, even Mars is becoming “the people’s planet!”

Since January, NASA has encouraged Earthlings who want to see even farther than Lee and Yeh, to tell them where to point the most powerful camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. And the first 8 “People’s Choice” awards on Mars are visible HERE.

“NASA’s Mars program is a prime example of what we call participatory exploration,” NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said. “To allow the public to aim a camera at a specific site on a distant world is an invaluable teaching tool that can help educate and inspire our youth to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.”

“Some people get into model railroading or Civil War re-enactments. My thing is exploring Mars,” said James Secosky, a retired teacher in Manchester, N.Y., who suggested an area for imaging after he examined online images from other Mars-orbiting cameras.

Remember, the best part of any exotic vacation is the pictures. And if you want to help NASA decide which part of the unimaged 99% of Mars to create memories of next, be sure to visit HERE.

Last night I happened to catch John Coleman’s TV show, “Global Warming: The Other Side” on KUSI-TV, an independent TV station here in San Diego. Coleman’s an extremely interesting guy — founder of the Weather Channel, expert TV weatherman (formerly with “Good Morning America” on ABC), an irresistible, effervescent personality.

John Coleman — A resourceful “David” successfully challenging the global warming “Goliath.” Click .

In his hour-long news special (available HERE) Coleman takes aim at some major holes in global warming, and features serious charges that the temperature data on which global warming theories are based has been deliberately altered in the direction of warming.

Computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government’s primary climate center: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina. Smith and D’Aleo found that NOAA manipulated temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and cherry-picking the location of weather observation stations.

You can see more details in their report HERE.

Recently in the Wall Street Journal (1/14/10), Stanford economist Michael Boshkin observed that “If a CEO issued the kind of distorted figures put out by politicians and scientists, he’d wind up in prison.” As a scientist myself, I am especially saddened to see scientists referred to this way but that’s what Climategate’s all about. For example, Professor Michael Mann, a key figure in Climategate, indicated a private desire to “hide the decline” in global temperatures in recent years, and is currently under investigation by Penn State University. At the same time National Review Online is reporting that the Obama administration has awarded $ 500,000 to Mann as part of their economic stimulus package. So much for job creation and scientific peer review.

Earlier this week Fox News (1/11/10) reported this rather strange headline, “30 Years of Global Cooling Are Coming” according to a “leading scientist” at Germany’s Kiel University. An author of the UN’s IPCC report, Professor Mojib Latif believes we’re in for a “mini ice age.” This is an interesting switch on global warming alarmism, but it suffers from one big problem: No climate model can reliably forecast climate decades ahead.

For those who didn’t already know, this was confirmed by Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder in a Climategate email, “The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” In his email, Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section of NCAR, acknowledges privately a key point: In 1998 climate models did not predict the cessation of global warming that has occurred — despite continued increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide — over the last dozen years, and no one can explain why it happened. So climate forecasts decades in the future like Professor Latif’s are simply unreliable.

The decline of global warming politics is what we would expect as we approach an ebullient golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology known as the 2015 Maslow Window. Polls indicate the public has already moved on. They are eagerly looking forward to prosperity and even a Camelot-style zeitgeist like that of the 1960s and of all other ebullient Maslow Windows of the last 200 years — all the way back to Lewis and Clark.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas is the time of the year that Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who according to Matthew and Mark in the New Testament, was born to the Virgin Mary in the city of Bethlehem;  in about 4 BC.

Adoration of the Child (1439-43), a mural by Florentine painter Fra Angelico.  

Click 

Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, and in his trial before the Sanhedrin Jesus himself  indicated that he is the Messiah (Mark 14: 53-65). 

Jesus’ moral teachings are as extraordinary today as they were 2000 years ago and include: the Golden Rule — Do unto others as you would have them do to you, turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, etc.  Jesus is also famous for his outreach to all who would listen, including sinners and even tax collectors, such as the apostle Matthew.  You can read more about Christ’s teachings in any online Bible and in many online commentaries.

The Star of Bethlehem — The Christmas Star

According to Matthew, the “Wise Men” from the east followed the star to Jerusalem and eventually found their way to the manger in Bethlehem where Jesus had been born.

Adoration of the Magi by Florentine painter Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). The Star of Bethlehem is shown as a comet above the child. Giotto witnessed an appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1301. 

Click

 Although Giotto portrayed the Star of Bethlehem as a comet, other explanations have been suggested including a supernova or a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus.  This time of year many planetariums offer interesting public programs on this phenomenon.  Be sure to check out  the Vatican Observatory’s  perspective on the star.

Christmas in Africa with Dr. Livingstone (“I presume”) and Henry Stanley

One of the Great Explorations of the last 200 years was Dr. David Livingstone’s adventures in central Africa.  You might be interested in reading about how he and Henry Stanley celebrated Christmas in 1871, in “10 Lessons Dr. Livingstone (“…I presume?”) Teaches Us About the Human Future in Space”

And although not directly about Christmas, you may also enjoy checking out the spiritual side of the human expansion into the cosmos in, “10 Spiritual Connections of the Human Exploration of Space“.

Merry Christmas!

The Climategate scandal involves “some of the world’s leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data — facts that were laid bare by … disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit…” (Wall Street Journal, 12/1/09; B. Stephens).

Climategate connects with prospects for near-term space colonization in at least 3 major ways. One is financial.

Anything that weakens the potential for re-ignition of the major economic boom — actually the greatest global boom ever – that was interrupted by the Panic of 2008, might delay the near-term development of widespread affluence-induced ebullience that has powered each of the spectacular Maslow Windows (e.g., the 1960s Apollo Moon program) over the last 200 years.

One such potential factor is Cap and Trade. “The Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institution and the National Black Chamber of Commerce all found that the bill will have devastating economic impacts … (including) significant losses in employment and GDP.” Republicans are not shy about characterizing it as “”the largest tax increase — about $ 400 million USD per year — in the history of America.” And according to Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe (WSJ, 11/27/09), in response to a question from him, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stated it won’t significantly reduce global CO2 emissions.

As countries like the U.S. struggle to recover from the current great recession, major new taxes are considered unwise government policy by most economists. This is especially true in the U.S.’s current deficit situation.

According to former Congressional Budget Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin,

The federal government ran a 2009 deficit of $ 1.4 trillion — the highest since World War II — as spending reached nearly 25% of GDP and total revenues fell below 15% of GDP. Shortfalls like these have not been seen in more than 50 years.

Equally threatening to the next Maslow Window which, based on 200-year timing, should open near 2015 and extend to around 2025, is that there is no relief in sight.

Our national debt is projected to stand at $ 17.1 trillion 10 years from now, or over $ 50,000 per American …

Regarding the potential upswing (characteristic of a Maslow Window), Holtz-Eakin comments that,

The planned deficits will have destructive consequences for both fairness and economic growth … Federal deficits will crowd out domestic investment in physical capital, human capital, and technologies that increase potential GDP and the standard of living.

Mr. Holtz-Eaking concludes that the president’s “policies are the equivalent of steering the economy toward an iceberg.”

The deficits are also taking a political toll as President Obama’s poll numbers decline. According to Karl Rove (WSJ, 11/27/09),

Anger over deficits was picked up in a late October NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which asked voters if they’d rather boost “the economy even though it may mean larger budget deficits” or keep the “budget deficit down, even though it may mean it will take longer for the economy to recover.” Only 31% chose boosting the economy; 62% wanted to keep the deficit down.

This is consistent with Gallup polls (9/17/09) indicating Obama’s lowest marks on his handling of the deficit; only 38% approved and 58% disapproved.

The good news for Obama’s popularity and the deficit — as well as the 2015 Maslow Window — is that Climategate has weakened the prospects for Cap and Trade. According to Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe (WSJ, 11/27/09),

Cap and Trade is dead … Ninety-five percent of the nails were in the coffin prior to this week. Now they are all in.

The second way Climategate connects with prospects for near-term space colonization is psychological.

Over the years Global Warming has been presented as a near-certain chamber of horrors including sea level rises of 3 feet or more resulting in devastating, global coastal flooding, huge temperature increases of 5 or more degrees producing plant and animal extinctions, increasingly intense hurricanes and extensive ecosystem damage … and on and on. All because humans are commiting the sin of releasing too much carbon into the environment. And we much stop now before it is too late.

Even the wildest claims about the dangers of global warming are routinely trumpeted by much of the media, including that giant Burmese pythons will migrate as far north as San Francisco and take over one-third of the U.S.. I heard the python story on local radio one day in Southern California and was very amused, but not everyone is. For example, many young children — who are much too young to evaluate the political and scientific issues involved — are frightened. One recent survey shows that 1 of 3 children aged 6 to 11 fears that our planet won’t exist when they grow up, and over one half believe that the Earth will be “a very unpleasant place to live.”

The usual solution to global warming fears is an anti-growth, anti-technology message. The “science is settled” so all we can do is dramatically cut back our use of fossil fuels, submit to trillions of dollars of taxes, and end our hopes of increasing prosperity due to crippled economies.

Even before Climategate, the public was not buying it. For example, in 2006 Gallup found that the percentage saying global warming will “pose a serious threat to you or your way of life in your lifetime” was only 35%; 62% thought it would not. And earlier this year, Gallup reported “the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.” The Climategate scandal is likely to accelerate this trend among the public.

A number of scientists have proposed innovative technological approaches to mitigation of global warming if it were to become a serious problem in the 21st century. Perhaps the most interesting examples are from Roger Angel, the discussion in March/April, 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs, and the distinguished Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson.

This trend toward a more positive and realistic approach to climate change — being accelerated now by the revelations of Climategate — is very consistent with historical trajectories of public attitudes at comparable times over the last 200 years. As I pointed out in a previous post:

As we approach the 2015 Maslow Window, two other effects will increasingly come into play: 1) the fact that Maslow Windows are characterized by unusually optimistic (even ebullient) public attitudes, and 2) the increasing global fascination with large, international technology programs and space colonization – expected during the 2015 Maslow Window — will suggest to many around the world that solutions to key global challenges (e.g., the environment, energy) will benefit from space technology and resources.

The third way Climategate connects with prospects for near-term space colonization is through science.

Science is special. It is the only objective way humans have of probing physical reality and learning about the Universe. Scientists collect data about a natural system and then propose a model for how it works. Scientists use the model to make predictions about what should be observed in the real world. Those predictions are checked by observations of the natural system; any deviations from physical reality are used to change the model and thus improve it. Repeatedly using this process — making observations, sharing data, openly discussing issues — can result in a convergence of the model with physical reality.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. But the scientific method can break down, even for major questions. And when it does it shakes the foundations of what we know about the Universe, including potentially the public’s belief in our ability to expand human civilization into the cosmos, or even just to prosper on the Earth.

Here are some examples:

1. “The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Dr. Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
In his email, Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section of NCAR, acknowledges privately a key point: In 1998 climate models did not predict the cessation of global warming that has occurred — despite continued increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide — over the last dozen years, and no one can explain why it happened.

MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen (WSJ, 11/30/09) points out that articles by climate modelers attrribute “the failure of these models to anticipate the absence of warming for the past dozen years was due to the failure of these models to account for natural internal variability …” like El Nino and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. “Thus even the basis for the weak IPCC argument for anthropogenic climate change (i.e., human-caused warming via CO2) was shown to be false.”

The bottomline is that: 1) modelers are admitting that something other than carbon dioxide can drive global climate change (e.g., natural variability), and 2) because the climate models cannot explain even the current lack of global warming, their predictions for warming 10, 20, or more years into the future are unreliable. And thus while global warming might indeed become a major problem at some point in the future — as astrophysicists assure us it will within a billion years when the Sun’s luminosity predictably increases and evaporates Earth’s oceans — we cannot accurately predict even near-term warmings or coolings with current climate models.

If the scientific method had been operating normally, these and many other secret conversations would have been shared with other scientists and the public in real-time. Instead, sadly we had to wait for Climategate to reveal them and clarify important issues.

2. “Science is not always what scientists do.” J. Allen Hynek (d. 1986), formerly Professor and Chair, Department of Astronomy, Northwestern University.
Scientists are people first and scientists second. They are subject to the same fears, greed, jealousies, ambitions, anger, etc., as anyone else. In fact, scientists are only being scientists when their professional activities conform to the scientific method as sketched above.

Sometimes scientists behave with almost quasi-religious attitudes. Religions are atrractive to the vast majority of people because they involve belief systems and world views that give meaning to life. Plus challenges to their beliefs do not usually disturb the believers because they are based on faith. In essence, while religions may be supported by historical or physical evidence, they are not fundamentally driven by it, as science is.

For example, in August 2009 more than 60 prominent German scientists — including several UN IPCC scientists — declared that global warming has become a “pseudo religion” in an Open Letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They noted that rising CO2 has “had no measurable effect” on temperatures and that the “UN IPCC has lost its scientific credibility.”

Sometimes scientists behave more like politicians than scientists. In real democracies the people often vote to make decisions on important issues. In science, voting or authority figures do not determine our picture of physical reality, only data does. Today we especially admire Galileo for standing up to the authority of the 17th century Roman Inquisition and not disavowing his then controversial telescopic observations of the Sun, Moon, and planets. This idea of the primacy of observational data has penetrated deeply into modern life, even beyond the natural sciences. For example, the British economist John Maynard Keynes — father of Keynesian economics — once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Sadly, the Galileo Principle of the primacy of observational data in science is not reflected in the private emails of Climategate. For example, Professor Phil Jones, who has stepped down temporarily as head of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia while Climategate is investigated, speaks privately of modifying temperature data sets to “hide the decline” in global temperatures. According to John Lott of FoxNews.com (12/1/09), another CRU professor,

Tim Osborne, discusses in emails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that would otherwise been seen in the results. Professor Mann (of Penn State) sent Professr Osborne an email saying the results he is sending shouldn’t be shown to others because the results support critics of global warming. Time after time the discussions refer to hiding or destroying data.

When ideology trumps science, some scientists act like politicians. They secretly modify data to conform to their party-line beliefs. I am not surprised that some scientists are dishonest; they are regular people and that’s to be expected. My concern is the way the scientific method has been deliberately ignored for many years by many scientists around the world, who definitely know better. This, including the destruction of the original temperature data sets by Climategate scientists, has obscured our view of the details of real global climate change. And certainly, as Professor Lindzen points out, “Claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre.”

3. Is science dying?
As a planetary scientist who’s worked in the aerospace industry and in academia, and has been thrilled by the idea of space colonization since a very young age, my major concern is what Climategate means for science. Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal recently asserted (12/3/09) that “science is dying.” Henninger continues,

I don’t think most scientists appreciate what has hit them … For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science. The public was told repeatedly that something called ‘the scientific community’ had affirmed the science beneath this inquiry … Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because ‘science’ said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons.

But because of the Climategate scandal — an “epochal event” — the public’s view of science is about to change.

The average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and “messy” as, say gender studies … If the new ethos is that “close-enough” science is now sufficient to achieve political goals, serious scientists should be under no illusion that politicians will press-gang them into service for future agendas. Everyone working in science, no matter what their politics, has a stake in cleaning up the mess revealed by the East Anglia emails. Science is on the credibility bubble. If it pops, centuries of what we understand to be the role of science go with it.

For some, global warming politics and ideology are all that matter; you can recognize them by their lack of interest in the details of climate science and their attempts to ignore or divert attention from the science-related content of Climategate.

Science should be quite different from politics in both methods and goals, and certainly needs to move farther away from politics so that the scientific method can flouish again. As long as politics and ideology dominate science — as they have in the climate change field — we can never know what really exists in the Universe and how it works.

If the universities and governments affected by Climategate take appropriate action against those who stifled the free and open discussion of scientific data and issues in Climategate, the essence of science and even science’s public image can recover.

In a best-case scenario, Climategate could ironically help stimulate the New Space Age by strengthening our global financial picture, helping people everywhere regain a positive, even ebullient feeling about the future, promoting 1960s-style pro-technology, prosperous attitudes, and reaffirming that science is indeed a reliable tool for expansion of human civilization from a vibrant Earth into the cosmos.

If the last 200 years of Maslow Windows are any guide, that’s what we should expect will happen.

The world’s “first clown to go into orbit” lifted off yesterday morning (GMT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. While some cynics might insist that other “clowns” have already been in orbit — and they shall remain nameless here — this was the first professional clown to actually do it.

Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte is the 7th private space tourist and the 1st real clown to reach orbit. Click .

Guy Laliberte, the founder of Cirque du Soleil paid the Russians $ 35 M for a Soyuz ride to the International Space Station; he plans to give a space-worthy performance that will be streamed on the internet.

According to the BBC, Mr. Laliberte is different than anyone ever to visit orbit,

I’m an artistic person and a creator. I’m not a scientific. I’m not an engineer. Life has given me some qualities, some assets and I have built up a team of very creative people around the world. With those people I think we’ll present something that is originally creative and hopefully will have the result of sensitising people toward the situation of water in the world.

On October 9, Laliberte’s 2-hour “poetical social” performance from high above everything, will feature contributions from links to 14 cities around the world.

This is a seminal event in the expansion of human cvilization and culture into the cosmos. Although the cause celebre is the need for clean water for people everywhere, equally striking is the performance in orbit by a famous, professional entertainer.

Hopefully the 2015 Maslow Window will allow more artists to perform in space. However, in the short term — after Shuttle retirement in 2010 or 2011 — there may be few Soyuz tourist seats available as they are taken by professional astronauts on their way to work in space.

If not, you’ve got only a couple more weeks. NASA says LCROSS — the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite — will be a “smashing success” on October 9! (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one, but I promise to avoid impact-related puns from here on…)

Any Lunarians vacationing in the south polar Moon crater Cabeus A are headed for an exciting morning October 9 when a large NASA spacecraft crashes into it. Click .

Water on the Moon is big news today. For example, NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), that hitched a ride almost a year ago onboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, discovered both water and hydroxl molecules especially in the lunar polar regions (Science, September 24, 2009). According to Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland,

“Our analysis unequivocally confirms the presence of these molecules on the Moon’s surface and reveals that the entire surface appears to be hydrated during at least some portion of the lunar day.”

Although water and hydroxyl are present in larger abundances than expected and are a very exciting discovery, the actual water molecule fractions are only about 1000 ppm of lunar soil. Apparently hydrogen ions in the solar wind arriving at the lunar surface interact during the day with oxygen-rich minerals near the lunar surface to produce the observed water.

Regarding the M3 lunar surface water discovery, Carle Pieters of Brown University cautions that,

“When we say ‘water on the Moon,’ we are not talking about lakes, oceans, or even puddles. Water on the Moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust spacifically in the top millimeters of the Moon’s surface.”

Of course, the lost lunar lakes (or even oceans) would be the most important and cost-effective resource we could find on the Moon — the holy grail for lunar scientists and others interested in studying, developing, and colonizing the Moon. Active international interest in lunar polar waters is consistent with accelerating human expansion into the cosmos as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window.

To detect these types of major water deposits on the Moon — suggested previously by Clementine (1994) and Lunar Prospector (1999) — NASA has developed LCROSS that will impact a Centaur upper stage at 2.5 km/sec on the Moon and create an ejecta cloud expected to expand 10+ km above the surface.

In a previous post, India and NASA Search for the Lost Lunar Lakes, you may want to check out my interview with Lunar Prospector PI Dr. Alan Binder as well as the challenging comments of two other lunar scientists, Drs. Paul Spudis and Stewart Nozette.

LCROSS is not exactly a subtle technique but it should meet our basic needs. On October 9, after venting any remaining fuel from Centaur, it will will impact the Moon, excavating at least 200 tons of lunar rock and soil. The Shepherding Spacecraft will rapidly descend into the plume making in situ measurements of its composition — searching for lunar water — and transmiting this data back to Earth, just before it creates a second impact plume on the Moon.

Funseekers on Earth — amateur astronomers and students — with 10″ or larger telescopes may be able to see the plume and participate in the discovery! Many public events are planned around the country or you can watch from the comfort of your video room at home on NASA TV. NASA also provides impact timing for those planning their own LCROSS Impact Party. See this link and have a blast!