I became convinced around 1990 while with General Dynamics that if you want a safe, inexpensive, and near-term path to the human exploration and colonization of Mars, there was only one way to go: Establish a manned base on Phobos (and/or Deimos) and mine the interior for ices or hydrated minerals, while you direct in real-time a global swarm of robotic rovers exposing scientific secrets on the Martian surface.

Is this mountain-size Earth-crossing asteroid the next step to Mars?
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One key reason is the stunning, but still obscure fact that every 2 years a launch window opens that makes it easier (energy-wise) to get to Phobos than the surface of our own Moon! But, although we currently have plenty of imagery of both Martian moons, we still aren’t quite ready to pull this off.

We need a sample-return mission from Phobos — like that planned by Russia and China (Phobos-Grunt) for launch in 2011 — or we can wait for Mother Nature to deliver a Phobos-like asteroid to our vicinity. That’s OSIRIS-Rex (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) which, if given final approval by NASA in summer, 2011, will target near-Earth asteroid 1999 RQ 36.

OSIRIS is About Science and Security:
Not surprisingly, NASA is officially selling OSIRIS based on its impressive science and Earth-security potential. About 1/2 kilometer wide, RQ 36 “Is a treasure trove of organic material, so it holds clues to how Earth formed and life got started,” says Joseph Nuth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

OSIRIS would offer an interplanetary first: return of samples from an asteroid for composition analysis in labs around the world. OSIRIS would launch in 2016, acquire samples of the asteroid in 2018, and return them to Earth in 2023. What a wonderful way to celebrate the opening of the new international Space Age during the 2015 Maslow Window!!

RQ 36 is also becoming famous for its designation by NASA as a “potentially hazardous asteroid” and that it has about a 1 in a 1000 chance of hitting Earth in 2182; this probability is quite uncertain as well as far-future. But veteran planetary scientist Clark Chapman notes that if it did occur, “It would be an enormous impact, like hundreds of the biggest nuclear bombs ever built exploding at once, creating a crater maybe 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] across,” although the impact would not be civilization-threatening.

The University of Arizona to the Rescue!
According to the UA News,

Michael Drake, director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, will serve as principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx. OSIRIS-REx brings together the UA’s leadership in planetary science, Lockheed Martin’s extensive experience in sample-return mission development and operations and the Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) expertise in project management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. The OSIRIS-REx payload includes instruments provided by the UA, GSFC, Arizona State University and the Canadian Space Agency.

Mike Drake and I came to the University of Arizona at the same time: I was a new graduate student who came over from UCLA (to work for Gerard Kuiper), and he was a new assistant professor. Now he leads the Lunar and Planetary Lab that was created and initially led by the legendary “Father of Planetary Science” Gerard Kuiper.

Does OSIRIS Relate to Phobos?
Given that history I was curious if Mike saw any scientific relation between OSIRIS and future exploration of Phobos. In his email to me, he indicated that,

OSIRIS-REx is a free standing mission competing in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. So it has no programmatic relationship with any other mission. That said, our target asteroid (RQ36 for short) is an organic-rich NEO. Phobos is also probably organic-rich. So many of our scientific objectives relating to the origin of organics that led to life might also be satisfied with a pristine sample return from Phobos.

Regarding any similarities between OSIRIS and Phobos-Grunt, Mike admitted,

I don’t know much about PHOBOS-GRUNT. However, inasmuch as it succeeds in returning a Phobos sample to Earth for study, its results could be overlapping or complementary with respect to organics … How organically clean their mission will be is unknown to me. Although both are small objects, RQ36 is in free orbit around the Sun while Phobos is obviously in an unstable orbit around Mars … So operationally a Phobos mission would be very different from OSIRIS-REx.

The Russia-China Connection:
The timing and goals of OSIRIS versus Phobos-Grunt are especially interesting because — as I suggested in my decade forecasts and also more recently — Russia and China are becoming well-positioned for a joint manned Mars exploration initiative sometime after 2015. This is an example of a world-altering event with Sputnik-like potential to trigger a new space race as we approach the 2015 Maslow Window.

However, after missing the 2009 Mars launch window, Russia is targeting a 2011 launch to Phobos and Mars; e.g., this date is repeated on The Planetary Society website in connection with their LIFE experiment. Presumably Phobos-Grunt would acquire Phobos samples by 2013, while Drake has confirmed that OSIRIS launch would not be until 2016 with samples returned to Earth in 2023. In any case, even if Phobos-Grunt slipped another launch window, it would still be expected to acquire Phobos samples well before OSIRIS was even launched.

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!

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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

President Obama’s space policy has “polarized” the space community like never before. It has resulted in three particularly interesting types of responses: strategic, commercial, and political. We’ll take a peek at all three and highlight their limitations in the context of the long-term, fundamental drivers of human expansion into the cosmos.

Are Robert Bigelow’s inflatable space modules the future in space?
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Former Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, Dr. John Logsdon, recently offered a Space News Commentary (6/30/10) from his new book manuscropt, John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon (to appear early next year). He defends Obama’s policy, as does Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal (7/21/10), although Jenkins’ focus is more on space-related business.

Logsdon is an astute, long-term analyst of the space scene and is to be congratulated for integrating the last 50 years (almost one full long wave) in space, but unfortunately, it leads to some misconceptions. Without recognizing the full implications of the last 200 years of great human explorations and massive technology projects — back to Lewis and Clark — it’s possible to miss fundamental themes that permeate them all and point to a spectacular, near-term golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology.

Is the Impact of Apollo a net negative?

According to Logsdon,

Sending 12 astronauts to the lunar surface was a great achievement and will forever be a proud part of American history. But in my judgment, while Apollo’s impacts on subsequent U.S. human spaceflight activities have been lasting, they have been on balance negative.

Actually Apollo was a brilliant, strategic response by JFK to long-term economic and geopolitical forces that reached a critical point in 1961. Three other 1960s-style critical points (i.e., “Maslow Windows”) are separated by 55 to 60 years back to Lewis and Clark. Many current indicators — including long-term GDP trends and the Panic of 2008 — point to a new Maslow Window opening by 2015.

Apollo was aimed at beating the Russians to the Moon; it was not propelled by a long-term vision of space exploration. To meet Kennedy’s “before this decade is out” goal, NASA chose a set of hardware systems and an architecture optimized for getting to the Moon as soon as possible; these choices had unfortunate consequences.

Logsdon is exactly right about Kennedy’s Cold War space goals; they were to win the space race, not to set the stage for large-scale space colonization. So it’s really “Monday-morning quarterbacking” to complain about their “unfortunate consequences.” Given the extraordinary historical context in which Kennedy’s program was conceived, it indeed — by any fair measure –was a success.

And Jenkins believes that “NASA’s tragedy is that it never recovered from the success of Apollo.”

What happened during the 40 years after Apollo?

I recently explained this in terms of the lack of wide-spread, affluence-induced ebullience driven by rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms (e.g., the 1960s Kennedy boom). But according to Logsdon,

One way of understanding the 40 years since Apollo is by viewing the space shuttle and the international space station as attempts to preserve and take advantage of that (Apollo) infrastructure, work force and industrial base. Pursuing an “Apollo on steroids” approach to the Constellation program was an understandable sequel to those programs, once again trying to employ the heritage left by Apollo. But this, like the hardware developed for Apollo and then abandoned, is ultimately a dead-end approach.

Logsdon supports his point by quoting Yale sociologist Gary Brewer (writing 20+ years ago) who observed that

NASA during the Apollo program came close to being “a perfect place” — the best organization that human beings could create to accomplish a particular goal. But, suggested Brewer, “perfect places do not last for long.” NASA was “no longer a perfect place.” The organization needed “new ways of thinking, new people, and new means.” He added “The innocent clarity of purpose, the relatively easy and economically painless public consent, and the technical confidence [of Apollo] … are gone and will probably never occur again.

Logsdon’s and Brewer’s positions regarding new Apollo-style programs as a “dead-end approach” that “will probably never occur again,” are simply not supported by history. In fact, great human explorations (e.g., Lewis and Clark), macro engineering projects (e.g., Panama Canal), and major wars (e.g., World War I) cluster together exclusively near rhythmic, twice-per-century major economic booms, over the last 200 years.

Without the crucial, but straightforward insight that space exploration is closely related to great human explorations of the past (at least back to Lewis and Clark), Logsdon and Brewer miss the point about the future. But Brewer’s description of Apollo as “a perfect place” is exactly what we would expect of a fractal Maslow Window during its critical state.

Is near-term commercial, habitation, and scientific development of Earth-Moon space still in the cards?

Jenkins (WSJ, 7/21/10) worries that

Many of the New Space companies have made it thus far by consuming the fortunes of celebrity entrepreneurs … (but) That can’t go on forever …

This is especially critical because

Gone is most of the money Mr. Obama earmarked to give private entrepreneurs … The customer they have their eye on (now) isn’t NASA but hotel magnate Robert Bigelow, who has two prototype modular space habitats already in orbit but lacks affordable transport.

Surprisingly, Logsdon sees the private sector taking on “a larger role in providing transportation service for people traveling to low Earth orbit” as fundamentally “a side issue.” To him, the big enchilada is “developing capabilities for going beyond Earth orbit.”

Again historical precedent illuminates the future. Humans first went to the Moon in 1969 during the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window. And Apollo is analogous to Lewis and Clark opening up the Great Northwest during their Maslow Window ~200 years ago. But it took about 1 long wave until the transportation routes, the availability of land, and the California Gold Rush motivated many people to go there to prosper. Likewise, it took almost one long wave (~ 50 years) to develop the systems that will allow entrepreneurs to profit from sending people into space. And because going into space is even harder than California, it’s still being perfected. But the point is that Richard Branson and many others will soon profit from this new “Gold Rush” in space.

“A polarized debate unprecedented in my more than four decades of close observation of space policymaking…” according to Logsdon, who then complains several times in his short piece about how poorly the government has presented and defended the new Obama space policy, including:
1) “…an incoherent defense of the new strategy…”
2) “Obama confused the situation even further in his April 15 speech…”
3) “There is a coherent explanation of what is being proposed, but NASA has given it little emphasis…”
4) “The White House and NASA dug a rather deep hole is mismanaging the rollout of the new strategy…”

It’s been my experience that when politicians or their advocates complain about the way a key policy or strategy is officially miscommunicated, it’s usually because the policy itself is weak and/or unpopular.

What could be wrong with Obama’ s space policy? According to Logsdon,
the following didn’t help much:

announcing a quickly conceived resuscitation of Orion, blowing off the Moon as a valuable destination, and setting an ambiguous target for a heavy lift vehicle.

Couldn’t agree more and you can see more here.

Logsdon concludes that,

The greatest threat to U.S. space leadership would come from our political system insisting on staying with the Apollo-era approach to the future…

This comment misses the key historical lesson of the rhythmic pulses of great explorations and grandiose macro engineering projects (including Apollo) over the last 200 years.

In fact, it’s not “our political system” that fundamentally drove Apollo. It’s actually the laws of economics and human nature.

Over the last 2 centuries, whenever humans could indulge their raw exploration passions, they did. In the modern world, this occurs mainly during short-lived, but exceptionally ebullient Maslow Windows that are driven by unparalleled 1960s-style economic booms.

Each Maslow Window has a different focus but the 2015 Window is likely to feature new commercial activities in space, international Moon bases, space-based solar power technology developments, and possibly the first humans to Mars.

But better enjoy it while it’s here, because long wave timing indicates the following Maslow Window isn’t expected until 2071!

As we search for clues to our economic future by looking for parallels between our current great recession and the past (e.g., the 1930s), it’s logical to also seek historical parallels relating other great events that are strongly dependent on economic conditions. For example, the manned space program, and specifically, human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars.

Viewed in this context, President Obama’s recent cancellation of Constellation — America’s program to return to the Moon by 2020 — is not a big surprise. It’s just a speed bump on the road to a near-term Moon base, including international commercial and scientific development of Earth-Moon space.

This glimpse of the future is not based on hope or optimism, but on long-term trends in the economy, technology, and geopolitics which point to a near-term re-ignition of President Kennedy’s nearly 50-year old vision of human exploration of the Moon and planets.

The 1960s Apollo Moon program was the greatest combined exploration and technology event in the history of the world, because it was off-world!
Click .

If we could understand what fundamentally drove Apollo, we might glimpse our future in space. And yet, as we discovered again last July during celebrations of the Moon landing’s 40th anniversary, we still can’t agree on why Apollo moonwalking ended in 1972. For example, Right Stuff author Tom Wolfe believes “the answer is obvious. NASA had neglected to recruit a corps of philosophers,” such as Saturn V developer Wernher von Braun, to explain the real meaning of Apollo to the public. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Heavens and the Earth (1985), Walter McDougall explains that

the bold lunar goal … encouraged Congress and the nation to believe that Apollo was the space program … Once the space race was over and won, Americans could turn back to their selfish pursuits.

Formerly with CNN, Miles O’Brien dismisses the most obvious manned space challenge — cost.

If you don’t want to mention the cost of the wars, if you would rather not get into Wall Street or Detroit bailouts, or if you don’t want to tell them the money we spend on the space program is about the same as our annual expenditure on coffee — why not mention India?…Calcutta can afford it — and Cleveland can’t?

This is an important clue. Apollo cost about $ 150 B (in 2007 USD). Imagine the Apollo-level manned space programs we could have funded with only a fraction of Obama’s initial $ 800+ B stimulus package. But although the money magically appeared, Americans did not spontaneously demand Moonbases or manned Mars missions. So the availability of money, by itself, does not fundamentally drive big space programs.

Wolfe alludes to powerful. but short-lived forces permeating Apollo: “

Everybody, including Congress, was caught up in the adrenal rush of it all.

This included the quintessential media figure of the time, Walter Cronkite, who predicted that after Apollo 11, “everything else that has happened in our time is going to be an asterisk.”

And O’Brien concludes that.

Truth is, we have done nothing to equal (much less top) the accomplishments of Apollo. And even worse, we haven’t tried. We did someting truly great, but then walked away from it.

This emotional component — and its rapid demise in the late 1960s — explains why money is not enough. The people also have to feel good.

This is reminiscent of a Keynesian concept called “animal spirits,” used to explain why investors become either irrationally exhuberant or unnecessarily discouraged by business conditions during a boom or a bust. However, public support for Apollo was not primarily driven by the promise of profits from space, nor in the end, even by beating the Soviets to the Moon.

Instead the unprecedented, widespread affluence from the Kennedy boom momentarily catapulted many average citizens to elevated levels of Maslow’s hierarchy where their expanded worldviews made the Apollo program seem not only intriguing, but almost irresistible — as reflected in 1960s opinion polls.

Indeed, the strong connection between manned planetary exploration and Maslow-related values was emphasized in 1961 by the National Academy of Science’s Space Science Board, chaired by Lloyd Berkner, in their influential report to President Kennedy.

Man’s exploration of the Moon and planets (is) potentially the greatest inspirational venture of this century and one in which the whole world can share; inherent here are great and fundamental philosophical and spiritual values which find a response in man’s questing spirit and his intellectual self-realization.

But the Maslow effect was short-lived. As early as 1966, growing distress over Vietnam and budget issues began to erode affluence-induced “ebullience,” and this 1960s Apollo “Maslow Window” rapidly closed, as evidenced by Nixon’s cancellation of the last three Apollo Moon missions.

As recently as Memorial Day weekend in Chicago at the International Space Development Conference 2010, distinguished physicist and space scientist Freeman Dyson lamented that “we have been stuck in LEO for 40 years.” In the context of Apollo, this is consistent with the absence — since the 1960s — of a post-World War II-style long boom culminating in widespread, Camelot-style ebullience.

We almost got one started in 2007 when Fortune magazine (7/12/07) celebrated the “greatest economic boom ever.” But it was interrupted by the financial Panic of 2008 and our subsequent great recession. Will 2007′s great boom be revived? And how soon?

Intriguing parallels with Apollo go back at least 200 years to Lewis and Clark, but the last century is particularly revealing. For example, the financial Panic of 1893 and the great 1890s recession may have more parallels with our current circumstances than the Apollo-related decades from 1950-70. The 1890s featured a double-dip recession and unemployment above 10%, as well as a political realignment that led to a stunning 1960s-style economic boom after 1899. The resulting early 20th century Maslow Window featured extraordinary ebullience, including “Panama fever” as the new canal split the continent and transformed America into a global power, “pole mania” as heroic international teams risked death to be the first to the poles, the civilization-altering Wright brothers’ first flights, and perhaps the most ebullient U.S. president ever: Theodore Roosevelt.

The trajectory of future history is not confined to a choice between the 1890-1913 Panic/recession model or the 1950-1973 Apollo example. But significantly, they both point to a golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology that’s just around the corner.

Based on the historical pattern of rhythmic, twice-per-century Maslow Windows — over the last 200 years — including the Panic/Great Recession pairs (like the Panic of 2008) that typically occur a few years before the Windows, we can expect the new international Space Age to start gaining momentum by 2015.

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”?
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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 first American to orbit the Earth (in 1962) and the oldest human to travel into space (age 77 in 1998) recently articulated a position on U.S. manned space policy. From the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University, former Senator Glenn recommended we continue flying the Shuttle while we develop a heavy lift launch vehicle, and skip the Moon.

Total eclipses of the Moon are usually dark, often surprising, and sometimes downright spooky. Click

Let’s explore Glenn’s intriguing perspective.

Apollo as a recent echo of Lewis and Clark
Glenn notes that America’s early world leadership grew from exploration, research, and education.

Geographic exploration did not have the sole purpose of just remaining alive during travel to new and distant places. Travel was followed by a period of learning about, and how to use, the newly found destination to our advantage. Space travel should be no exception.

Glenn sees space exploration as the most recent manifestation of great human explorations over the last 200 years — all the way back to Lewis and Clark. This powerful perspective is the key to the secret of the past and future of human spaceflight.

The Greatest International Space Project of All Time Was Almost Canceled Twice – And Almost Nobody Squawked

The International Space Station is widely considered to be the greatest international space program of all time although the U.S. House of Representatives came within one vote of canceling it in 1993. ISS never really gained support until it became a truly international project with 15 nations as partners.

Glenn calls it a “highly successful cooperative international project, probably the most successful ever … It is the most unique laboratory ever conceived and can now start research never before possible.”

But even so, our stunning $ 100 B “National Laboratory” was scheduled for termination in 2015, only 5 years after its completion, until President Obama extended it to 2020. Yet strangely there was no public outcry. ISS has suffered from poor long wave timing but now appears to be riding the accelerating wave of globalization into the future.

Whatever became of the “greatest spacefaring nation”?
Glenn’s major concern is the multi-year gap between Shuttle retirement in 2010 or 11 and its replacement.

The originally planned gap of two or three years of our having no U.S. manned launch capability will realistically be closer to eight or ten years — or more … U.S. astronauts will…train for final launch preparation on Russian spacecraft, launch, and return to a grassland landing area at the end of the mission … launches of U.S. astronauts into space will be viewed in classrooms and homes in America only through the courtesy of Russian TV.

Glenn believes the Shuttle is safer than ever and is only 1/3 of the way through its original design lifetime. And he is unequivocal about America’s need for a heavy lift launch vehicle to enable future human adventures on the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

A heavy-lift space work horse to someday replace the Shuttle is a necessity for our space future. The flexibility that gives to our manned and unmanned programs will be key to continued world leadership as other nations develop their manned space capabilities.

Glenn’s traditional approach to our future in space is what you might expect from a major icon of the 1960s Apollo Maslow Window. While acknowledging crucial Russian cooperation throughout ISS, Glenn recognizes current space-related national prestige factors and geopolitical realities. But his insistence on a Saturn V-class (100+ ton to LEO) heavy lift vehicle for human expansion into the cosmos is questioned by some on cost, schedule, and private enterprise rationales.

“If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a moon.”
…according to space visionary Krafft Ehricke (1917-1984). But Glenn feels that “To establish a lunar base is extremely expensive and can wait, at least for now.”

According to Glenn,

The principal rationale for establishing a base on the Moon, aside from international prestige, was to gain experience in extraterrestrial living in preparation for future space destinations. Those deeper space travels are far enough in the future that I agree with postponing a lunar base.

It’s puzzling that, according to Glenn, national prestige is enough to drive development of a traditional heavy lift vehicle but not the first human base on another world, especially one so closely linked to Earth with such important science and commercial potential.

For example, in 2007 the National Research Council was pretty excited about The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon — especially its “unique … microenvironment at their poles” (e.g., water deposits), and the bombardment history of the inner solar system that is “uniquely revealed on the Moon.” Not to mention astronomy from the airless, stable lunar farside.

And commercial opportunities include the development of lunar resources (e.g., water, oxygen), lunar communications and logistics, the lunar power system, and tourism (initially featuring lunar telepresence for theme parks and schools). This would be facilitated by an international organization like Interspace.

As the only scientist to walk on the Moon (Apollo 17), Harrison H. Schmitt, points out,

The investment of money and intellectual capital in going back to the Moon, permanently, brings with it, not merely geopolitical high ground and prestige of physically being there, but constitutes a deliberate pathway to economic development … history ties the expansion of democracy to a people’s access to energy…

It’s likely that our road to the Moon will interact strongly with humanity’s growing need for energy from space, especially from space-based solar power satellites. For example, the U.S. miliary has hinted at their interest in this technology. And Japan has announced a $ 21 B, 15 company space-based solar power initiative. Many countries — including China, India, and the U.S. — are facing enormous energy infrastructure costs in the next couple of decades, and will welcome this clean-energy option, particularly as it drives down launch costs.

Well, who actually won the space race?
Frustration with our current space launch gap has caused some to wonder who won after all. For example, Bill Ketchum, a long-time space vehicle engineer, program manager, and space enthusiast formerly with General Dynamics, recently (6/22/10) commented in an email,

While I agree with John Glenn, he ignores the fact that while the Russians have had an uninterrupted human space launch capability for the past 49 years, America has had several long periods with no capability: 7 years between Apollo and Shuttle, 2 years after Challenger, and 2 years after Columbia. The Russians have had their problems but never stopped flying. They continue to use the same rocket and spacecraft that they developed 50 years ago. While this seems outdated, it has served them well. America, on the other hand, has developed, flown, and then abandoned 4 systems: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and now the Shuttle. And now America will depend on the Russians to get our astronauts into space, at $50-100 million per astronaut, until America comes up with a replacement for the Shuttle (commercial operators such as Space-X ?).

So who has really won the space race ?

Although the U.S. clearly won the race to the Moon 40+ years ago, Bill’s point about the current situation is well taken.

Reminds me of Freeman Dyson’s recent speech in Chicago about Russia’s long-term approach to major space activities versus America’s Apollo-style, decade-long spurts. America has unwittingly allowed itself to be more fundamentally controlled by the previously unknown effects of long waves in the economy.

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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?
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(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.

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.

Sunday night the renown and beloved physicist and space technologist Freeman Dyson spoke at ISDC 2010 here in Chicago. It is indeed a pleasure to encounter such a monumental scientific mind who also possesses a powerful vision of the human future in space.

Freeman Dyson at ISDC 2010 in Chicago on “American and Russian Space Cultures.”
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So much wisdom, it’s hard to know where to begin. However, I’ll sketch his major themes and expand on them in future posts.

A Public Highway to Space
Dyson reminded us that the U.S. space program is at a turning point, considering the plans of Obama versus Bush and with the Augustine report as guidance. Although Obama does not include a PHS it does feature private firms developing manned launch systems to ISS. Dyson personally favors development of laser propulsion using water as fuel, although he recognizes that other systems might also perform efficiently.

In response to a question from the floor, Dyson said a cheap launch system should be the primary strategic goal of pro-space activist groups like the National Space Society, the organizer of ISDC 2010.

What About Terraforming?
As you might expect from a superb physicist, Dyson asserted that the primary problem one faces in human settlement of the solar system and beyond is “biological not technological”. Many space scientists approach planetary colonization with the assumption that it’s desirable to make planetary surface environments more Earth-like before large-scale space colonization can begin.

Dyson’s brief but compelling counterpoint is that it makes more sense to customize humans to their particular planetary environment rather than to attempt large-scale terraforming. He even views it as an attractive future option — eventually witnessing the emergence of several varieties of humans in response to their particular worlds.

Dyson wonders what would have happened in space “if John F. Kennedy had thought more like a Russian?” Click .

Short- Versus Long-Term Thinking About Space
Dyson’s main thrust was to contrast America’s space culture with Russia’s. He began by noting that the U.S. space program is composed of two parts: manned and unmanned. Scientists who lead unmanned space projects point to a long string of successes that literally span the solar system over the last 5-6 decades, and they develop new generations of space technologies on a decade timescale. However, regarding manned space, even “40 years after Apollo we’re still stuck in LEO!”

In Russia it’s different. “When a space launch occurs the whole town celebrates with a parade.” The Russian “trinity” of Tsiolkovsky, Korolov, and Gargarin is displayed everywhere, and the atmosphere is more like a “religious sacrament.” Dyson notes that in Russia space is regarded as a key part of “human destiny”, not just science; and the Russians see ISS as an expanded Mir (de-orbited in 2001) in which they take great national pride.

Dyson suggested that in the early 1960s if President Kennedy had thought more long-term like a Russian — instead of focusing on a short decade-long Moon program — we might now have a substantial Moon base that utilizes space resources. And it might even be self-sufficient.

The basic problem according to Dyson is that “American space culture thinks in decades.” But Russia takes a more intangible, human spirit approach that embraces “centuries” as its space timescale.

Our concept of the “fractal Maslow Window” speaks to the issues of American manned versus unmanned timescales for success. For example, technology development associated with unmanned programs is usually relatively unknown to the general public partly because of low cost (e.g., Goddard’s liquid fueled rocket, 1926; Frank Low’s low-T IR detectors, 1961; multiple gravity assists and Cassini, 1997). Thus many technology developments in a variety of programs — space and otherwise –occur continuously and can produce new generations on a decade timescale. However, manned space programs are highly visible, risky, state-of-the-art endeavors with large price tags and significant geopolitical implications. And as a result they become very political.

History shows that Apollo-style programs emerge only during brief, ebullient intervals called Maslow Windows, that — over the last 200 years — occur every 55 to 60 years. They appear to be fundamentally driven by long-term business cycles (e.g., the long wave) and are exclusively associated with major economic booms. Another way to think of Maslow Windows is in a fractal context, in which the international technology/economic/geopolitical system becomes highly interactive and reaches a critical state every 5-6 decades. This appears to be both a necessary and sufficient condition for culturally transformative programs like Apollo to occur.

This explains why no human has been to the Moon is almost 40 years. But more importantly, Dyson’s experiences suggest the Russians may be more advanced than the U.S. in their approach to planning manned space programs that can transcend Maslow Windows.

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?
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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.