Welcome to the Sunday Paper Club. Every Sunday, this blog will offer analysis of a paper on space habitation and other related topics. These are my opinions on a weekly scientific paper. They are subject to my perspectives and believes. I am open to debate, so if any reader believes I have misinterpreted something in a paper, please point it out. I'm only a student and I'm still learning how to read these papers and interpret them. All quotes are from the paper unless otherwise noted. All papers I review are available for free online.
This week we are reviewing the paper 21st Century Waves: Forecasting Technology Booms and Human Expansion Into the Cosmos.
Photo by Grant MacDonald
One of my favorite rebuttals for economic arguments against space habitation is the Maslow Window theory. However, when I asked a question on the blog Ask Me Anything, I found myself unable to explain this theory in depth. If I am going to continue to use this theory to support the space habitation argument, I must at least read the paper.
Basically, Maslow Windows are economic time periods that are similar to the 1960s, the height of the space race. Every major event in human history tends to be clustered in 56 year bursts. This theory suggests that economic booms are the driving force behind history's biggest wars and finest engineering projects.
An optimistic society is a more productive one. During times of economic prosperity, the people of the world tend to be happier. If they are happier they are more productive, plus they have the time and resources to dream. I can tell you right now, no major progress in space will be made during this recession. In my opinion, humanity is focused on the negative; we are a pessimistic society. I see extreme movements with negative opinions of the future, like the 2012 movement, forming and growing. If we think humanity is on a downward slide to it's doom, if we think that we will never return to the good old days, then we will not have the will to better ourselves.
I feel, right now, only the most passionate people are in the space field. You can only find people who where born to work in this field, supporting and funding this field. The general public simply doesn't care about space anymore. Dreams of space cities are crazy when your in a world stocking up emergency supplies for a end of the world date which was born out of fear for the future.
It is possible that this recession, a time where the space field is in danger, was born out of the lack of hope in the future. If you thought everything was going downhill, you would roll up into a ball and pull all your money into gold. Look at the news, just looking at this small sample of human event, it is very reasonable to conclude that we are all doomed. But, if you where to look at each industry, each area of human life in depth, there is reason for hope. "The critical factor is our belief about what's going to happen to us".
"Rene Dubos [said] [t]he most distressing thing about the modern world is not the gravity of its problems...it is the dampening of the human spirit...[o]ut very survival as a species depends on hope". I agree with and have first hand experience with this statement. I'm graduating from high school on Monday, yet the morale of my high school's class of 2009 is at an all-time low. My class has a sense of impeding doom; the child-free movement is strong in my class, 2012 is a favorite topic. My class does not have the ambition and passion and all the other characteristics of youth that a fresh, 18 year old, high school graduate should have. Let me give you an example, this is a discussion thread on Facebook. The names have been blacked out for legal reasons. My real name is Daniel Sims.
I see comments like this all the time. We are the youth and we are hopeless. Space dreams can not survive if they can't even seek refugee in our youth. The human spirit is crushed and with it, dreams of space. The Internet might be a factor in triggering the mindset change needed for space habitation. With the Internet, bigger audiences then ever are reachable. One person can try and comfort someone with a dark mind. The great events that happened today are easier to find.
Something I found interesting was the description of a Macro-engineering project: "although sometimes practical in purpose, they are often aimed at satisfying intangible needs of a spiritual or psychological nature and are highly inspiring". A mass space habitation project would be enough to push my classmates out of the dark frame of mind. Since it is a need, maybe, as we get darker, the support for any inspiration will grow. Just like how people start wanting to eat anything as they get hungry.
Maslow windows also call attention to the need for humanity to stop fighting each other. Maslow windows are often shattered by war. The reason we are not in an infinite time of abundance is because of the destruction war brings. "To a visitor from Mars, it must have appeared that the Western world in 1914 was on the brink of Utopia". WW1 brought us away from that joyous brink. Something that is stopping NASA from getting more funding is the Iraq war; if we weren't in Iraq, we might have more money for dreams.
Maslow windows are triggered by great technological developments. If someone where to develop a very cheap rocket, then humanity would less economic reasons not to go, and more reasons to go to space. Which we need to have because if we do not establish space habitations by 2025, according the the theory, we will have to wait till 2081.
