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

Last week well-known futurist Bill Halal, founder of TechCast, emailed me that they are forecasting an economic boom in 2015. TechCast runs a continuous online Delphi Poll with numerous experts in a variety of key areas. He knew I’d be interested because 21stCenturyWaves.com also sees one then.

Our prediction is fundamentally based on spectacular societal pulses of activity (“Maslow Windows“) composed of great explorations, macro engineering projects, and major wars. They appear fundamentally driven by rhythmic, twice-per-century 1960s-style economic booms, over the last 200+ years. The last one began in the late 1950s with the Apollo Moon program, which, given a long wave of about 56 years, pointed to 2015 as the opening of the new international Space Age. Indeed, nearly 15 years ago in Space Policy, I forecasted that “the decade from 2015 to 2025 will be the analog of the 1960s …” (Cordell, 1996).

Does the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 — including Charles Ferris’ original wheel — actually point to a major boom by 2015? (Or is this just “circular” reasoning? )
Click .

More recently — since the NATO Advanced Workshop on Kondratieff Waves, Warfare, and World Security held in Portugal in 2005 — and especially since the crisis in September, 2008, we’ve identified a number of diverse trends that support a major economic boom beginning in 2015. A few of these are: 1) the financial panic of 2008 itself and its great recession, 2) growth of large non-space macro engineering projects, 3) accelerating global interest in exploration and development of the Moon, 4) excitement about new commercial suborbital space opportunities, and –perhaps most surprisingly — 5) stunning historical parallels that indicate the economic and political trends of ~100 years ago may be relevant to today.

Brief Philosophical Pause: It’s appropriate here to remind readers that 21stCenturyWaves.com uses an empirical, long-term approach to project what we think will happen, not necessarily what we want to occur. This is especially important in topics like this post that contain large political and economic content.

The World Columbian Exposition of 1893 was Ebullient
Life-long Chicago-area resident Mary Kulberg first alerted me to the extraordinary World Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, that celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in America.

This was a world-class, watershed cultural event. It featured 200 new buildings of classical architecture that were visited for 6 months by over 27 million people. Highlights included the memorable “White City” and even Charles Ferris’ original 264 foot high Ferris Wheel with 36 cars, each of which held 60 people!

Most importantly, the Fair became a symbol of the growing feeling of American Exceptionalism. And it is impressive evidence for growing “ebullience” in 1893 — within a decade of the spectacular Peary/Panama/T. Roosevelt Maslow Window.

By comparison with today, significant evidence for an ebullient approach to the anticipated 2015 Maslow window is what, on July 12, 2007, Fortune Magazine called “the greatest economic boom ever.”

The Panic of 1893 Led to Prosperity
The bankruptcy of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad on February 23, 1893 signaled the beginning of the Panic of 1893. It’s analogous to Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 that marked the onset of the Panic of 2008.

The Panic of 1893 began about 6 years before the extraordinary economic boom that triggered the early 20th century Maslow Window. Assuming a similar interval between the Panic of 2008 and the next Maslow WIndow, a large economic boom should appear by 2015.

1890s Unemployment Triggered “Coxey’s Army”
Although the Columbian Expo officially opened in October, 1892, people were not admitted until May 1, 1893, over 2 months after the Panic began. So, although the early effects of the 1890s great recession were severe, Expo attendance surged, much as it has at the current World Expo 2010 in Shanghai (started May 1, 2010) where attendance records are being set (~70 M expected visitors at current rate).

Nevertheless unemployment was above 10%, by current estimates, for most of the 1890s great recession. A protest march led by Jacob Coxey reached Washington, D.C. on April 30, 1894 with about 500 men. They demanded that President Grover Cleveland create jobs through public works programs.

Like Coxey’s Army, the Tea Party Movement is a national, grass-roots protest which began soon after the Panic of 2008, in February, 2009. However, Tea Party members have focused more on reducing big government, debt, and taxes, and are expected to be influential in mid-term elections this year..

Coxey’s Army didn’t die out in 1894. Another march successfully reached Washington, D.C. in 1914, shortly after the collapse of the Peary/Panama/T. Roosevelt Maslow Window and the start of World War I. One observer was L. Frank. Baum, which has led to Coxey-like interpretations of his book, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The 1890s Great Recession Caused A Political Realignment
Because the Panic of 1893 resulted in wage cuts and job losses, it contributed to major labor unrest. The Pullman strike — the first national strike in U.S. history — eventually involved 250,000 workers in 27 states; tragically much of the Fair was destroyed by fire during the strike’s peak.

President Cleveland determined that the strike was a threat to public safety and the U.S. mail and sent 12,000 U.S. Army troops to assist U.S. Marshals in breaking it. Illinois governor John Altgeld was infuriated by Cleveland’s use of federal force and managed ultimately to keep him from being renominated at the Democratic convention of 1896.

Because of Cleveland’s inability to deal with the effects of the Panic of 1893, McKinley won the presidency in 1896 and presided over the return to prosperity. In 1901 McKinley’s successor, President Theodore Roosevelt led the U.S. into perhaps its most ebullient Maslow Decade in history.

A Japanese-style Decade?
Although we see many intriguing historical parallels, it’s still not obvious how the story will play out.
For example, the 1890s Great Recession (1893-99) was a “double-dip.” Will our current recovery falter similarly?

Everyone agrees the recovery has slowed, and the signs are not good. Commerce Department reported today that the U.S. economy grew at only 2.4% annualized in the 2nd quarter, down from 3.7% in the first. According to the New York Times (7/30/10), “Many economists expect growth rates under 2 percent for the remainder of the year.” Even more ominous is a recent warning (New York Times, 7/29/10) from James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, that current policies put America at risk of “a Japanese-style deflationary outcome within the next several years.” This might eclipse the 1890s contraction.

A weakening recovery, unemployment near 10%, record deficits, etc. are dragging President Obama’s job approval ratings to the low 40′s; and Congressional approval is much lower. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recently suggested Republicans could retake the House this year. Others believe the Senate is also vulnerable. Some are even openly suggesting that Hillary Clinton will challenge Obama for the presidential nomination in 2012.

A Continuing Political Realignment?
Like its 1893 counterpart, the Panic of 2008 triggered a political realignment with the election of President Obama and Democratic supermajorities in Congress. Given current economic trends, it’s likely that Republicans will experience significant Congressional gains in November, and may continue the political realignment — but this time in their favor.

Although the presidential election of 2012 seems far away, few economists are forecasting dramatic improvements in economic growth and unemployment prior to that time. And current trends are consistent with an 1890s-style replay, including Hillary winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 2012, Obama becoming a 1-term Cleveland-like victim of the Panic of 2008, and Hillary losing to a prosperity-oriented Republican in the style of McKinley in 1896 — whose eventual successor was the ultra-ebullient Theodore Roosevelt — who would beome the leader of the 2015 Maslow Window.

Although current history is not necessarily hostage to an 1890s-style replay, one thing seems likely: the drive for prosperity in the form of a major economic boom commencing by 2015. Over the last 200+ years, this stage in the long business cycle (the “long wave”) consistently features a major economic boom that drives unprecedented, ebullient exploration and technology programs immersed in a Camelot-like zeitgeist.

For those who relied mostly on economic models, the Panic of 2008 and subsequent great recession was a shock. But for those who noticed trends in macroeconomic data — especially over the last 200 years — it was a realistic probability. Likewise, theoretical models of Earth’s climate system can’t reliably forecast the future (or even current) climate, because they don’t include the actual physics of the system.

Does declining solar activity signal the “end of global warming”?
Click

This is important because climate politics (not to be confused with climate science!) currently has the potential to significantly lower economic growth which is the fundamental driver of the new international Space Age, as well as previous Apollo-style Maslow Windows over the last 200 years.

Despite what many media and political types continue to tell us, for some time the scientific data has pointed away from CO2 as the climate culprit; an excellent summary is here. And the Sun is receiving icreasing attention because of its odd behavior and interesting history, and new science about its connections to climate.

The Sun is Changing

As of yesterday, the official webpage of chief NASA Sun forecaster David Hathaway is still sticking to its story that the next solar sunspot cycle will be only about half as active (Max= 64.1 in mid-2013) as the last 3 cycles. (Sunspot cycles last about 11 years but their intensities are highly variable.) It was only a few years ago when Dr. Hathaway warned colleagues at the American Geophysical Union meeting (12/2006) that the next solar cycle is going to be a big one. It

looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago,

You can see an amusing animation of the declining trend of Dr. Hathaway’s solar cycle predictions HERE.

Are We on Course for a Dalton Minimum or a Grand Minimum?

Times of low solar activitiy are associated with cooler temperatures on Earth. And 2008 and 2009 were in the top 3 most spotless years in the last century;
Click
A good example is the severe European winter of 2009-10, although the correlation holds at least back to 1650.

Hathaway told the New York Times last year (7/20/2009) that while a Maunder Minimum — a time from 1645 to 1715 when sunspots were almost absent associated with the Little Ice Age — is unlikely, a Dalton Minimum “lies in the realm of the possible.”

From 1790 to 1830, the Dalton Minimum featured maximum sunspot numbers near 50 (only 15 below Hathaway’s current prediction for the next cycle) and cooler temperatures on Earth. For example, the Oberlacch Station in Germany experienced a 2.0 deg C drop for twenty years, and the “Year Without a Summer” occurred in 1816.

Although still uncertain, the mechanism amplifying small changes in solar activity (see the presentation by Kirkby.CERN.2009) to produce climate change on Earth is apparently associated with galactic cosmic rays (GCR); they trigger ion-induced cloud formation and cooling on Earth’s surface. During low solar activity, magnetic fields in the solar wind are weaker and block fewer GCRs; so increased ion-induced nucleation by GCRs triggers more cloud formation in the lower atmosphere — and cooling.

In the June, 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology (Vol. 8, 1983-1999) Duhau and de Jaeger propose that the Sun will enter a “Grand Minimum” of solar activity. Like the Maunder Minimum, it will feature very low solar activity and will last for at least one century. They forecast that the current cycle (#24) will occur in mid-2013 and will have a Dalton-like max sunspot number as low as 55. Their model indicates the Grand Minimum should arrive around 2020 to 2030.

The Sun and the New Space Age

Macroeconomic data and historical trends — including the Panic of 2008 and current great recession — over the last 200+ years point to the arrival of the new international Space Age near 2015. In several ways, the Sun will encourage humans to think beyond Earth for their future.

1. As science points convincingly away from CO2 and toward other climate change factors (including the Sun/GCR connection), the rationale for major climate legislation — that would limit rapid economic growth typical of Apollo-style space programs — is reduced.

2. Opinion polls show the American public does not regard CO2-related climate change as a major threat to their lives. They appear to be far ahead of many current political leaders. The profoundly negative vision of the future described by CO2 climate advocates is inconsistent with the societal ebullience that we expect near the opening of the 2015 Maslow Window.

3. Increasing scientific and public interest in the Sun as a fascinating astronomical body with important influences on climate change is expected to accelerate as we approach the new Space Age. Things associated with extraterrestrial life and habitable planets (e.g., Mars) — including the life-giving Sun — will take center stage as we continue human expansion into the cosmos and contemplate settlement of the solar system.

4. The Sun will play an increasingly central role in our global energy future through the development of large space-based solar power satellites. This is closely related to #3 above.

5. If the Sun were to descend into a Maunder Minimum-style “Grand Minimum” between 2020 and 2030, it would be a global disaster. Keep in mind that without long-term planning we can expect long-term economic forces to abruptly terminate the 2015 Maslow Window by 2025, if not before. Having a large, routine presence in space by 2020 — including more control of solar energy — will enable human civilization to prosper through both potential threats.

The way the future works has a lot to do with the past — especially the ways that humans, resources (especially geography), and technology have interacted before.

The future’s important because it’s where we’ll spend the rest of our lives. Click .

Here at 21stCenturyWaves.com, the idea has certainly not been to try to understand how everything works.

Instead, we have focused on the following questions: 1) Why do the great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), massive macroengineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and the major wars (e.g., World War I), cluster together — over the last 200+ years — exclusively in connection with rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms (e.g., the 1960s Apollo “Maslow Window”)? and 2) What does this tell us about the future of technology and space?

Because our approach provides a new framework to illuminate both the past and future — e.g., summarized in my recent look at the next decade — it’s always exciting to compare it to macro-historical thinking by a first-rate historian like Cambridge University Professor Nicholas Boyle.

Boyle’s book, 2014 – How to Survive the Next World Crisis, appeared this week and boldly uses multi-century historical patterns to project trends in the 21st century, including 2014 being a special year (which is no surprise to devotees of the 2015 Maslow Window!).

Multi-Century Patterns in History Provide Powerful Insights

Professor Boyle’s bold use of historical events over the last 500 years as the basis for his 21st century forecasts is impressive. He starts with Martin Luther’s theses of 1517 (triggering the Reformation) and surges all the way to 1914, the start of World War I. 21stCenturyWaves.com’s forecasts spring from macroeconomic data and historical patterns — especially with regard to great explorations, MEPs, and major wars — over the last 200 years.

Considered together these quite-different approaches feature surprising parallels and expanded insights into the past as well as the future.

There will be “a great event” in 2014
Boyle’s major insight is his forecast of a “great event” in 2014; this potential crisis is based on a generational rationale and the psychology of a new century. 2014 is near the projected opening of the 2015 Maslow Window — a 1960s-style golden age of prosperity, explorationm, and technology — based on the last 200+ years. So we like his timescale.

According to Boyle,

2007 started off colossal economic change which has still got a long way to go …

My thesis is that we have got another crisis to come, and you can already see that in the questions being raised over the debts of nations …

We agree because history shows he’s right.

Every Maslow Window of the last 200 years — with the exception of the 1960s Apollo Window — was preceded within a decade by a financial panic (liike that in 2008) and a great recession like the current one. A good analog for now is the Panic of 1893 and the 1890s great recession; it was a “double-dip” recession and lasted 6 years, suggesting our current recession should end by 2014 and could be consistent with Boyle’s expectation.

Interestingly, today CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf independently supported this estimate by stating that it will take another 4 years (not before 2014) for unemployment to decline to “normal levels” of about 5%.

However Boyle’s next “crisis” might be military. Over the last 200+ years, every Maslow Window has been plagued by an early- or pre-Window war or major conflict; the last was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 that almost led to a major nuclear exchange. But the good news is that, so far, the world has managed to avoid major destruction by these early-/pre-Window threats. And in fact, most actually create momentum toward the Maslow Window itself.

In the 21st Century: Peace or war?
According to Boyle, a ‘Doomsday’ moment will take place in 2014 and “will determine whether the 21st century is full of violence and poverty or will be peaceful and prosperous.”

And history shows he’s right again — although both will probably occur.

The way the future really works is illustrated by the last 200 years. Transformative, decade-long Maslow Windows are fundamentally driven by affluence-induced ebullience that’s triggered by rhythmic, twice-per-century unparalleled economic booms.

For example, distinguished historian Eric Hobsbawm (b. 1917) describes “The Great Boom” which powered the mid-19th century Dr. Livingstone/Suez/Polk Maslow Window, as

the extraordinary economic transformation and expansion … (with) prolonged prosperity … Never did British exports grow more rapidly than in the euphoric years between 1853 and 1857…

However, the decades between Maslow WIndows feature devastating depressions and military strife as the long business cycle (the “long wave”) descends to a trough and begins its recovery over about 4+ decades. Speaking of the 20th century, Hobsbawn comments that

The decades from the outbreak of the First World War to the aftermath of the Second, was an Age of Catastrophe for this society …even intelligent conservatives would not take bets on its survival … a world economic crisis brought even the strongest capitalist economies to their knees …

In the languge of Self Organized Criticality, the international economic/geopolitical system continuously self-organizes toward a critical state (the “fractal” Maslow Window) where major changes — both good and bad — occur rapidly and often without obvious triggers. Examples include the Apollo Moon program in the 1960s and World War I during the early 20th century Maslow Window.

Between Maslow Windows, the international economic/geopolitical system elements (countries, corporations, individuals) interact weakly and typically require several decades to self-organize back into another critical state. (The next one should begin by 2015.)

The devastating “Aspirin Age” decades between Maslow Windows are not inevitable. When we learn to include the long wave in our strategic thinking and macro-planning, their extreme effects should subside.

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.

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.

Like a breath of fresh air, the science of self organized criticality has illuminated many disciplines, including astrophysics, biology, climate, economics, geopolitics, and others (see Turcotte & Rundle (2002) PNAS, “Self-organized criticality in the physical, biological, and social sciences.”)

What do Apollo and the new international Space Age have in common?
…Self organized criticality?
Click .

The brainchild of Danish physicist Per Bak (1948-2002) — “one of the most original people in science” — SOC is an emergent property of complex systems whereby they organize themselves into a critical state such that rapid changes, including catastrophes, can occur. You can see the famous “Bak sandpile” conceptual model of SOC in Aschwanden (2010) as well as in Bak (1996), How Nature Works.

The captivating assertion of social scientist and SOC enthusiast Gregory Brunk (2002) that,

Virtually all aggregate-level, monumental events are somehow ’caused’ by the process of self-organized criticality,

suggests that SOC may have played a major role in the Apollo program and other major MEPs over the last 200 years. This post is a brief sketch how that might work.

Apollo Was the Most Recent of the Great Explorations
Cordell (1996) described the extraordinary pulses of great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro-engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (e.g., WW I) that cluster together exclusively every 55 to 60 years, over the last 200 years. I speculated that the decade from 2015 to 2025 would have economic, technology, and geopolitical parallels with the spectacular Apollo 1960s, including a JFK/Camelot-style zeitgeist.

Cordell (2006) introduced the concept of a “Maslow Window,” triggered by rhythmic, twice-per-century economic booms. Affluence-induced ebullience propels many to higher states in the Maslow hierarchy, where their momentarily expanded worldviews make great explorations and MEPs seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible. As ebullience decays — due to widespread perceptions of budget stresses, a war, etc. — the Maslow Window closes.

The Bottomline is: The realization that Apollo is the most recent in a rhythmic, 200-year long string of great human explorations starting with Lewis and Clark, potentially opens the door to Bak-style SOC.

Wars and the Evidence for Complexity
According to Bak, a complex system exhibits SOC only if it has some form of power-law scaling, called “fractal” by Mandelbrot (1963). Based on their size-frequency plots for wars, Roberts and Turcotte (1998) conclude that,

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

Although Roberts and Turcotte (1998) only had data up to 150,000 deaths per war, the fact that “medium-size” wars are almost pure SOC indicates that the major wars of Maslow Windows are also fractal, as suggested recently for World War I by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson.

Punctuated Equilibria and Exploration
In 1994, the National Academy of Sciences held a major colloquium in Irvine, CA on “Physics: The Opening to Complexity.”

In Bak’s conference paper, he considers SOC in the contexts of geology, biological evolution, and macroeconomics. For example, in economics each system consists of many “agents” that interact together,

such as producers, governments, thieves, and economists. These agents each make decisions optimizing their own idiosyncratic goals. The actions of one agent affect other agents. In biology, individual organisms … (or individual species) interact with one another. The actions of one organism affect the survivability, or fitness, of others. If one species changes by mutation to improve its own fitness, other species in the ecology are also affected.

Bak generalizes Stephen Jay Gould’s biological theory of “punctuated equilibrium” to all complex systems:

The system exhibits punctuated equilibrium behavior, where periods of stasis are interrupted by intermittant bursts of activity … They are intrinsic to the dynamics of biology, history, and economics … Large, catastrophic events occur as a consequence of the same dynamics that produces small, ordinary events … We believe that this punctuated equilibrium behavior, first noted by Gould and Eldredge (1977, 1993), is common to all complex dynamical systems.

The Bottomline is: The Apollo program — seen in the context of 200 years of great explorations — exhibits punctuated equilibrium behavior, an important step toward identifying it and the other MEPs as a SOC process.

Dynamics of SOC — The Gap Equation
Bak’s Gap Equation governs the system’s evolution from weak SOC to the fractal, self organized critical state.

The model is so general that it can also be thought of as a model for macroeconomics. The individual sites represent economic agents, and the random numbers f1 represent their “utility functions.” Agents modify their behavior to increase their wealth. The agents with lowest utility functions disappear and are replaced by others. This, in turn, affects other agents and changes their utility functions.

Bak’s quote above could apply just as well to agents of particular space projects modifying their behavior and vying for funding at NASA (or elsewhere) and/or Macro-Engineering Projects likewise seeking support of all types. Agents and projects with the “lowest utility functions” soon disappear (a Darwinian principle), no matter how big they are – just ask Constellation advocates!

The Bottomline is: This compatibility with Bak’s law indicates that space projects and MEPs are most likely governed by SOC. The Space Project/MEP System is most fractal just before and during a Maslow Window. As in Bak’s computer simulations, transitions into and out of the strong SOC state are abrupt just before (e.g., in 1901; in 1958) or just after the Maslow Windows (e.g., in 1914 and in 1970). While in the critical state, large changes (i.e., great explorations, MEPs, major wars) can occur in response to even a minor stimulus.

Predictability and SOC
The fractal nature of SOC inhibits long-term predictability of specific events during the critical state (i.e., during a Maslow Window). However, the last 200+ years show that, especially during the non-fractal decades between Maslow Windows, the long wave has been a reliable guide to the rhythmic, twice-per-century timing of Maslow Windows from Lewis and Clark through 1960s Apollo to the present. And other intriguing regularities are also observable.

For example, according to former UCLA geophysics professor Didier Sornette — who more recently founded the Financial Crisis Observatory in Zurich — in reference to the U.S. stock market, “It is possible to identify clear signatures of near-critical behavior many years before the crashes and use them to ‘‘predict’’ the date where the system will go critical …”

Bak also hints at predictability (by analogy with his sandpile model, he refers to major changes during the critical SOC state as “avalanches”):

During an avalanche, a great deal of rapid activity occurs in which species come and go at a fast pace. Nature “experiments” until it finds another “stable” ecology with high fitnesses. The Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago can be thought of as the grandmother of all such avalanches.

So what should we expect prior to a Maslow Window? What’s the analog for Nature looking for a more “stable” ecology while “species come and go” in a Darwinian sense? What signal should we see of “near-critical behavior many years before” the critical Maslow Window?

Two potential candidates have been identified that appear regularly over the last 200+ years:
1) Major financial panic/great recession combinations (e.g., Panic of 1893) that usually begin 6-8 years before a Maslow Window (including the Panic of 2008 and current great recession),
and
2) Moderate wars and/or dangerous confrontations (e.g., Cuban Missile Crisis) that are rapidly resolved and occur early in or just before Maslow Windows (including the current Iran crisis).

These precursors are consistent with both long wave patterns and self organized criticality, when our complex international economic system self-organizes into a critical state — characterized by Great Explorations, Macro-Engineering Projects, and major wars — that we call a Maslow Window.

My initial post on Obama’s new policy is visible here: Obama’s New Space Policy and the Spirit of Apollo

Frank Sowa’s insightful comments on my post are copied below for you, along with a few more of mine (in bold). Frank is CEO of The Xavier Group, Ltd. near Pittsburgh, PA. Along with first-American-to-orbit John Glenn, Frank is a graduate of Muskingum College in Ohio, and his interest in space was nurtured as a teen by his NASA engineer father who invented the J2H engine ablation system for the Saturn V Booster rockets. In the 1980s, Frank worked with Deke Slayton, one of the original NASA Mercury 7 astronauts, on the SSI commercial space payload concepts, and more recently with well-known futurist Marvin Cetron on DARPA, DoD, and other projects.

Here are Frank’s thoughts and a few more of mine (in bold):

Obama’s new space policy is not a ‘good one.’ While I somewhat disagree with Armstrong, Lovell, and Cernan — that is I do not believe “it is devastating.” I do believe it will have negative effects on the future viability of NASA as even “a premier space agency.” It certainly will lose its “superstar” status — probably within four years. In terms of policy, I think Obama sought a pragmatic middle ground that “saved” NASA as a “sustainable” agency with a “sustainable” future budget. The policy’s effects will limit NASA bureaucracy, and will support the political and media pundits who are chastising the US spending policies and deficits …

BC: Frank’s point about the “sustainability” of NASA relates to our great recession. Although many economists claim we are in for a slow recovery, I think it will probably be accelerated by U.S. political pressures that will be expressed later this year and in 2012. Not incidentally, that’s the pattern that occurred after the Panic of 1893 during the 1890s great recession. Their rapid turnaround led to possibly the most ebullient decade in U.S. history — the Peary/Panama/T.Roosevelt Maslow Window (1901-13) — and has implications for our prospects today.

Politicizing the decisions about the future of NASA, is much like politicizing the futures of the intelligence communities last year, and the cave-in to special interests on healthcare this year. They reflect on Obama and his administration poorly, but they DO get the job done, create incremental progress, and achieve some form of politically expedient compromise. The public sees little value in STEM, technological innovation, science, science literacy, etc. — much less space. That should be expected.

BC: The casual attitudes of some in the public today toward science and technology remind me of the mid-1950s before Sputnik. After the “shock of the century” the revitalization of science in the U.S. was immediate, including more money for all levels of education and the formation of NASA in 1958. Whether due to increasing cooperation in space with our international partners, or because of Apollo-like competition with others, it’s likely we’ll see a similar transition in the next 3 – 4 years.

Since Reagan, we’ve chosen as a nation to “refine and benchmark”, to “socially-engineer”, and to focus on brain-dead opinion polling rather than “exploring the unknown”, “seeking where no man had ventured before,” “truly exploring for the future of mankind.” We’ve dumbed-down our educational support systems by “trying to fix education” through a worn-out secular bureaucracy that performs best by never changing its precepts, challenging the given or status-quo, shaking things up instead of conforming, and championing new “out-of-the-box” thinking. We’ve bought into “supply-side” (voodoo) economics driven by finance, services, and consumption — as opposed to production, innovating to solve problems and meet demands, and using technology and the scientific method as the underpinnings of good growth. We’ve skewed capitalism to support me-ism and greed at the expense of people while peddling propaganda to say we were seeking an all-inclusive, kinder-gentler, less-violent society.

BC: Frank makes several strong points here, and these are typical of the negative long wave-related influences on society in the decades between Maslow Windows over the last 200 years (i.e., since Lewis and Clark). Another way to think of it is that since Reagan — in the context of great explorations and MEPs — the U.S. has experienced weak self organized criticality, and is only now moving toward a more fractal, self organized critical state characteristic of previous Maslow Windows (e.g., the 1960s), and expected again near 2015.

What does this mean to the new space policy?

It means we should no longer look to NASA as the driver of the US Space Program. NASA will continue to serve a policy role, and provide refinements on research to help facilitate private-sector and/or international options. It further means that all of NASA’s work and technologies since the 1950′s will be further divided between defense (national security) and civilian (sold to private sector contractors and interests), in sum — I believe NASA’s future will serve primarily as a policy-clearinghouse driven by legal eagles and acting much more in regulating US space like the FAA than exploring space as it had. This is sad and devastating to NASA’s Federal Labs, as well as to future governmental STEM employment that has much meaning. This won’t occur right away, but unless public opinion changes radically — it will be the normal view of and within NASA by 2030 …

BC: As Frank points out, if NASA’s trajectory remains as in Obama’s model, NASA will be dramatically changed. But big change for NASA at this time is not a surprise. Almost one long wave ago in 1958, NASA was formed from NACA to emphasize manned spaceflight (ultimately to the Moon). And today as we approach a new international space age, NASA should be expected to change again — most likely in the direction of more ISS-style international cooperation with a focus on human spaceflight into deep space (e.g., near-Earth asteroids, Moon, Phobos, Mars).

The US role in space if it accepts this tectonic shift in NASA’s role, and if the private-sector contractors that are domestically based are willing and able to take on the role of growing a domestic space program seeking and meeting long-term gains. The new US space program will be radically altered but may be bright. Will the private-sector live up to and take on this domestic challenge? It depends on how much we’ve dumbed down our society chasing short-term futures and “bling” at the expense of growing great through exploration. The odds are currently against a good outcome, but the same could have been said in the 60′s after JFK’s challenge. The scientists and engineers who want something good to be achieved will have to take on the responsibilities, as they did in the 60′s Space Race, to achieve beyond expectations. For those — “failure is not an option.”

BC: Frank is wise to see JFK’s Apollo Moon program as a positive analog, because 2015 is the portal to a similarly transformative decade in space and on Earth. Although it concerns me to hear canonical figures like Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan insist that it will take a decade before private industry can safely deliver astronauts to ISS and beyond, it’s likely that Obama will ultimately be remembered as the “father of commercial space”. In any case, the return of prosperity and the convergence of geopolitical forces within a few years will probably drive NASA back into the launch vehicle business sooner than most people expect.

The response to Obama’s new space policy from the Apollo program folks and the Texas Congressional delegation has been quite negative; e.g., from Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11), James Lovell (Apollo 13), and Eugene Cernan (Apollo 17), Obama’s decision to “cancel the Constellation program, its Ares 1 and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is devastating.”

On the other hand, Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11) and the space commercialization industry were more positive; e.g., Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and SpaceX, suggested it was realistic:

I think what this new policy recognizes is that NASA isn’t going to get some huge increase in its budget, as occurred in the Apollo era. So if we are to make great progress and sort of make the next giant leaps for mankind, then it has to be done in an affordable manner, and the only way to do that is by harnessing the power of free enterprise, as we use in all other modes of transport.

Can President Obama take us to Mars? Click .

And it’s possible they’re both right, but on different timescales. For example, at least in the short term, before an American replacement for the Shuttle is created, it may be “devastating” in a variety of ways, but in the longer term — when private launchers can safely deliver U.S. astronauts to the ISS and beyond — it may be financially and strategically profitable.

But rather than speculate further by focusing mainly on short-term thinking, Obama’s new space policy is an excellent opportunity to use the unique approach of 21stCenturyWaves.com, to see how the next 10-15 years could fit into the economic, technology, and geopolitical context of the last 200 years of great explorations and macro-engineering projects.

To illuminate Obama’s policy let’s ask a few questions.

I. Did Obama make an Apollo-style promise last week like that of John F. Kennedy in May, 1961?
JFK indicated that the U.S. would send a man to the Moon and return him safely “before this decade is out.”
According to U.S. News & World Report (1969), although initial cost estimates for Apollo were as high as $ 40 B — about twice the eventual cost — “Congress raised hardly any questions … (despite) disturbing domestic problems … Initial funds were appropriated swiftly to send Project Apollo on its way.”

Although President Obama has recommended that we go to Mars someday, in his policy speech he made no specific program recommendation or rationale, gave no firm timeline, and has not asked for a budget that could support a Mars initiative.

So Obama did not make a Kennedy-like commitment. But part of the reason is that Obama does not live in the economic and political world that JFK inhabited. Kennedy took office in 1961 as the greatest economic boom in history was gaining momentum, while Obama was elected during the Panic of 2008 and has governed during a “great recession.” The history of major exploration and technology programs over the last 200 years — since Lewis and Clark — shows clearly that Apollo-type projects do not flourish except during ebullient economic booms. Plus, Obama’s job approval rating (Gallup.com) fell from its high of 69 on 1/22/09 to 45 on 4/11/10, while JFK enjoyed his highest approval rating (83, on 3/8/62) while beginning his 2nd year; JFK’s lowest was 56 (9/12/63). Therefore, although Obama has a large majority in Congress, he does not currently possess the approval across the U.S. nor the political capital that JFK did.

II. Was the Constellation Moon Program canceled by Obama due to weak program goals?
Paul Spudis, an experienced planetary scientist and an astute leader of the return-to-the-Moon forces, remarked recently (4/16/10) that,

… one startling part of the speech was that we are abandoning the Moon as a goal …

But stop for a moment to consider exactly what President Obama said. Lunar return critics give many reasons to NOT go to the Moon: they think that it’s scientifically uninteresting, it doesn’t contain what we need, it will turn into a money sink (preventing voyages to many other destinations in space – perhaps number one on their list), that there are more pressing needs here on Earth, and I’m sure others that I haven’t yet heard. But this new space policy rationale is unique and carries with it different and significant implications for our nation’s exploration of space.

We have now added a new requirement for U.S. space missions – we must go to a place never before visited by humans.

According to Spudis, the real reason for returning to the Moon by 2020 was to begin the colonization of space by using lunar and other resources. In Spudis’ words, “the Vision for Space Exploration was strategic direction outlining a sustainable lunar return, whereby we would bootstrap our way ‘beyond’ by learning how to use the resources of the Moon and other bodies.”

Although it could have been just personalities or party politics, I began to suspect that the Moon wasn’t in our future when Mike Griffin wasn’t invited back. This was consistent with my initial impression that Obama would need to focus on repairing the economy and protecting national security, rather than charting grand visions in space. There was initially the well-advertised hope by Obama et al. that the $ 800+ B Stimulus Package would rapidly pave the way back to prosperity, and maybe that was the reason Obama didn’t favor the Moon … yet. But a year later, some of his major supporters in the economics community including Robert Shiller, “Don’t bet the farm on the housing recovery” (NY Times, 4/11/10), and Robert Reich, “The jobs picture still looks bleak” (WSJ, 4/12/10), are publicly hinting that problems will linger for a long time — as is the Federal Reserve (NY Times, 3/16/10) who left its benchmark interest rate near zero, and indicated it would likely stay there for “an extended period.”

So the real reason Constellation and the Moon were canceled by Obama is probably because he perceives no reason to continue it. In counter-ebullient times like now, the American public doesn’t have a burning desire to colonize the Moon or to pay for it. And Obama’s lack of success — so far — in creating a V-shaped, job-filled recovery indicates this situation will continue for “an extended period.”

However, Obama may be unaware that all ebullient economic booms (i.e., Maslow Windows) over the last 200+ years — except the post-WW II 1960s boom — were immediately preceded by a financial panic/great recession pair. And in fact, the Panic of 2008 signaled that we were within about 6 years of the new international Space Age.

III. Which is most important to Obama: Humans to Mars, prosperity, or the Superstar Effect?
Boris Spassky, a chess grandmaster, once said of playing Bobby Fischer — perhaps the greatest chess superstar of all time — that “When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive.” Against Fischer even grandmasters often experienced “Fischer-fear” including “flu-like symptoms, migranes, and spiking blood pressure,” (WSJ, J. Lehrer, 4/3/10). The negative aspects of the Superstar Effect are observed in many competitive endeavors, including golf with Tiger Woods, among new associates at law firms, and probably even internationally with the United States space program.

Removing NASA from the launch business, as Obama proposes, will force the U.S. to have more respect for its space partners, and dislodge it, at least temporarily, from its long-held position as the world’s Space Superstar. For many reasons, I’ve long been in favor of promoting major international participation in human settlement of the solar system. And in 1992, with Otto Steinbronn of General Dynamics, proposed “Interspace,” an ESA-style global space organization that would feature equality among its key members (e.g., Europe, Russia, U.S., Japan, China). Movement in this direction would be a positive outcome of a temporary reduction of the Space Superstar Effect.

Obama apparently moved the manned exploration of Mars into the mid-2030s not because of the need to develop advanced propulsion systems (they are not essential, and could be developed sooner), but because there is no public demand for Mars now. And yet the Red Planet remains the next profoundly alluring space goal for humankind. Although leaving much to be desired as a comprehensive space strategy, Obama’s Mars policy is an astute psychological move consistent with the last 200+ years of great human explorations. The sequence of great explorations since Lewis and Clark has been guided by 2 criteria: 1) physical accessibility, and 2) mysterious newness; the sequence is: American Northwest (Lewis & Clark), Equatorial Africa (Dr. Livingstone), N and S poles (Peary and Amundsen), and the Moon (Apollo). In each case, physical accessibility became increasingly challenging (especially with the Moon!), and each target was enticingly new. Although we haven’t really begun to explore, develop, or colonize the Moon yet, Obama’s advisors may have sensed that humans to Mars definitely resonates with the American psyche. As Spudis emphasizes above, the Moon seems “been there, done that” to Obama, while Mars is NEW.

However, there is a problem with Obama’s suggestion of manned Mars in the mid-2030s. Great human explorations and MEPs — including space exploration — do not work like that. The extraordinary ebullience required for these projects is usually only momentary because of economic and military events. An unfortunate example was cancellation of the last 3 Apollo Moon missions due to Vietnam in the late 1960s.

Indeed, the lesson of the last 200 years is that the new Space Age is likely to begin near 2015 and extend through 2025, but not into the 2030s. Our best hope would be a robust, international Mars plan specifically focused on circumventing unfavorable long wave influences through the 2020s. The history of the International Space Station offers some hope in this regard.

And finally: Prosperity. Without it, no one will want to go to Mars (although they could). Over the last 200 years, the spectacular, rhythmic, twice-per-century Maslow Windows — including the 1960s — are always times of exceptional prosperity and widespread affluence. Regardless of financial realities, it’s the feeling of ebullience (what Keynes called “animal spirits”) that fundamentally drives public acceptance of great explorations and MEPs.

The real political question for Obama is: Can he put America back on the road to prosperity — the hallmark of all Maslow Windows — before he loses more political support? International economic and geopolitical forces will converge in the next 3 – 5 years and demand success. Although Obama’s political fate is still largely in his own hands, the economic and political parallels with the 1890s are intriguing.

For more perspective, please see: How President Obama is Creating the New Space Age.