Special chapter for Novapublishers.com, 4/6/10
For electronic book: The Role of the Private Sector in Energy, Health, Global and Offworld Issues
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE CHALLENGES OFFWORLD
– UTILIZING SPACE RESOURCES FOR ECONOMIC RENEWAL
Philip Robert Harris, Ph. D.*
INTRODUCTION
The history of exploration reveals a pattern. First, government and the military enter the unknown world to establish basic infrastructure. Then private commercial entities and non-profit organizations follow with settlement and industrialization. That was most evident in the New World of the Americas,
from North to South, especially during the 15th to 17th centuries. Europeans arrived there initially under government sponsorship with military support to explore and establish outposts or colonies. The next stage saw large trading companies and entrepreneurs recruiting investors and colonists for the exploitation of new opportunities and wealth. And so it has evolved with outer space and its infinite resources. Government space agencies, initially from Russia and the United States, opened the space frontier through their cosmonauts and astronauts, mainly military pilots and scientific or medical personnel. In the first fifty years of the Space Age, the private sector was involved largely through aerospace contractors and satellite communication corporations. The 21st century has seen the emergence of space entrepreneurs and tourism. Private enterprise worldwide will now become the principal force behind humanity’s expansion offworld, resulting in major development of our potential as a species!
Today, there is global concern on how to recover from the current economic recession. In America, for example, the public, like members of government, seemingly are fixated on a $12 plus trillion national debt that originated with its last Presidential administration. Daily, this liability grows alarmingly when interest is added! In such serious financial crises, the attention of most citizens is not on outer space and its development. Yet, in the United States, for instance, there is a case for the White House and Congress to make in support of space investments. Possibly, the only long-term strategy we have for reducing national deficits is by immediately utilizing space resources. This approach is in harmony with the President’s 2010 State of the Union Address which encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, creation of new infrastructure and more jobs to get the country out of its “fiscal hole” and contribute to international economic recovery.
The American taxpayer still awaits a “return on investment” for their huge expenditures on the Apollo mission program. But the profitable satellite industry has already proven the case for greater funding of space business endeavors. Space tourism and transportation are already demonstrating the possibilities for private business. Now is the time to enlighten citizens of the vast resources to be tapped on the Moon. We could not only mine the lunar surface for valuable minerals and gems, but we could use its water and regolith to support luna industrialization and settlement! An increased focus on space undertakings will not only provide new knowledge and job growth, but stimulate science and education. High frontier activities are complex, costly, and risky for both life and fortunes. Therefore, it is my conviction, there is a need to form a Global Space Trust in which both private and public sectors may cooperate in joint ventures to build less expensive offworld transportation systems and infrastructure. The model provided by 16 nations to agree on the construction and operation of the International Space Station needs to be extended so as to encourage more private sector participation and management. Such collaboration is needed in the next stage of developing human facilities and enterprise for permanent return to the Moon, and eventually onward journeys to Mars and beyond! To that end, some advocates have called for the founding of a Lunar Economic Development Authority or Lunar Economic Infrastructure Corporation.
Further, the world’s aerospace community has an obligation and expertise to inform our fellow citizens that by moving beyond Earth, we can preserve our planet and keep it a green paradise. Gradually, all of the mining that despoils our home planet can be transferred to the isolation of the Moon, including atomic and fusion energy. Instead of using fossil fuels that pollute our environment, there is also endless, clean space-based energy to use, such as through a Lunar Solar Power System, on or around the Moon. We need the vision of the rocket scientist, Krafft Ehricke, on the extraterrestrial imperative – he had an open mindset about making the most of solar system opportunities and its endless resources! Realise that both planetary and national security depend upon vigorous space undertakings involving both the public and private sectors.
TRANSFORMING SPACE VISIONS INTO REALITIES
Human dreams and ideas span time, often taking centuries before being transformed into worthwhile activities. Some of our forebears dimly perceived the spectacular achievements which this generation has witnessed since the dawn of the Space Age. But so few are aware of humanity’s challenges ahead in exploring and settling offworld! Ultimately, that process will lead to a higher state of consciousness for our species, as well as a new designation for humanity – spacekind. Only then will our species truly achieve its full potential.
In the future, our descendants may remember the 21th century primarily for proving that humanity is not Earth-bound, but that our species is able to live and work in a microgravity environment. The last five decades may be viewed as a watershed period for commercial space and living aloft. It was a period when nations shifted from space competition to cooperation, from a space race to forming joint ventures for international macroprojects. The satellite industry not only turned our world into a global village by its communication capabilities, but demonstrated that it could be an extremely profitable
and useful undertaking. Where would health care, mobile phones, and global telecommunications be without space technology! Furthermore, orbital imaging and sensing have shown myriad practical applications on Earth, even in protecting our planet’s environment. The Russian space station Mir became the first platform for true international cooperation by agreements which brought aboard Europeans, Japanese, and even Americans. Today, the International Space Station expands the opportunities for its national partners to prove that space is the place for synergy. Hopefully, China will soon be invited to participate in that venture. Before the end of this decade, the whole ISS administration should be privatised and commercialised. Now spacefaring nations have much to gain in forming partnerships in lunar missions, particularly toward the goal of returning humans to the Moon permanently!
To lead the exploration and development of the space frontier, advancing science, technology, and enterprise, by building institutions and systems that make accessible vast new resources and support human settlements beyond Earth orbit, from the highlands of the Moon to the plains of Mars.
(Pioneering the Space Frontier, 1986, p. 2.)
To actually implement such lofty goals requires global transformational leadership in both the public and the private sectors now and in the centuries ahead. The business community at large, not just aerospace and communication satellite companies, must lead in the creation of a space ethos that supports an enlarged and well-funded space endeavors, both in the public and private sectors. Yes, space is a place for fulfilling dreams, as well as for acqiring knowledge and promoting free enterprise!
But how? Specifically, as a case in point, how can America further capitalize upon its $20 billion plus investment in the Apollo lunar landings? How can all nations get payback on their total space expenditures, especially through the utilization of space-based resources? Some innovative answers may be gleaned from the reports and recommendations of various space studies over past decades (e.g., NASA-SP509, 1992). Apart from the technical and economic insights, especially for the establishment of a lunar base, these studies include proposals for:
- building public consensus and financial support for the space program;
- initiatives within the private sector to foster the peaceful use of space by its exploration and industrialization;
- legislation that would transform the nation’s space agency, as well as its policies and procedures so as to facilitate private space enterprise;
- revision of bureaucratic Federal rules and regulations regarding private space launches and activities;
- promotion of educational and research endeavors that prepare the next generation of spacefarers for offworld challenges!
Outer space is also a place for science and astronomy, and much moe! Already, a private undertaking is under way to build an automated International Lunar Observatory (EM: info@iloa.org). At this juncture, the justification for peaceful and commercial development of space resources is more human and scientific, than economic or political. The rationale for moving forward on the space frontier has to do with discoveries which maintain technological excellence, security, and leadership in a knowledge culture! Space undertakings can benefit the Earth’s peoples, especially in the developing economies, by technology transfer within the twin planet economies of Earth-Moon. Our aspirations should be to actualize our potential by extending human presence throughout our universe. One proposal from Kim Peart of far-away Tasmania is worthy of implementation – namely, the formation of a Solar Peace Corps to take a proactive role to ensure peace and security within our solar system, especially through utilization of the Sun’s energy and system’s resources. The aim is to connect Earth’s children to the wealth of a Solar economy.
Here are five specific strategies that our government and space activists can take toward the creation of a spacefaring civilization:
- 1. National, Regional, and Global Convocations on Space Enterprises
Individuals and organizations can raise the public’s awareness by sponsoring space enterprise forums at both the local and world levels. Although this can be accomplished in actual group meetings, the best prospects for raising public consciousness on the necessity of space exploration and development may be the Internet and international television. Think back to the global media encounters sponsored by rock stars, environmentalists, and others with a humanitarian cause. Suppose supporters were to promote the existing Global Space Day to include world television and computer exchanges about humanity’s future beyond Earth. The primary objective would be to further understanding and consensus on improving the quality of life for this planet’s inhabitants by peaceful, commercial exploration and use of space-based resources. The second purpose would be to help earthkind appreciate the importance of human migration to the Moon and beyond. The impact on world citizens would go beyond present space gatherings among only the professional elite. It is the masses of human being who need information and education about the necessity for our moving beyond Earth. Then people might become global leaders in the creation of a World Space Fair.
.
- 2. Alternative Funding of Space Enterprises
New options must be pursued for financing space ventures, other than through the taxes and the annual governmental budget allocations. That traditional public sector approach will not obtain the $700 billion which the National Commission on Space estimated is required over the next five decades to open up the space frontier. Nor will the $200 billion plus needed to build a lunar base be secured by usual financial methods. Where are funds of that magnitude to come from, especially with huge national deficits and legislative spending restrictions? The history of both the Shuttle and the Space Station to date has been that of government cut-backs which undermined NASA designs and safety in mission planning and execution. In this century, the funding will come mainly from private investments and venture capitalists.
Creating a space ethos implies getting the masses of our citizens involved in space ventures, by some manner or other. In a democratic, free enterprise society, what better way to accomplish this than as a “financial investor.” Innovative ways for space financing must be sought that provide citizens and entrepreneurs with financial incentives, like tax rebates, sale of bonds, or opportunities for private equity funds. To capitalize upon the enormous public interest and good will generated by the space program in the past sixty years, alternative or supplementary funding possibilities should be explored, including the authorization of stock sales in limited R&D technological space partnerships or trading companies. Recall that back in the Sputnik days, the COMSAT offering on the stock exchange was oversubscribed by the public!
Public lotteries to support scientific exploration and civilizing ventures in the newly opened frontiers are part of national experiences. Since the 15th century, European countries have used the lottery device to raise capital for public works. In 1612, the English used this means to support the Jamestown settlement. In the New World, the colonists and first citizens of the American republic employed this mechanism to fund the establishment of higher education, including Harvard, Kings College (Columbia), Dartmouth, Yale, and other universities. In the 19th century, Americans again used lotteries to open up the Western frontier. During the present decade in the U.S.A., for instance, lotteries have become popular again within states to fund public services, particularly education. Today, many foreign countries, such as Australia and Mexico, successfully utilize lotteries or games of chance as a means of raising money to accomplish social goals. In the United States, the National Space Society (www.nss.org) in particular, should lobby for establishment of a World Space Lottery Fund.
If income produced from new funding sources is to alleviate the tax burden of central governments relative to space expenditures, the investment scope must be vastly broadened. That is what underlies the proposal of attorney Declan O’Donnell and myself in the 1990s to establish space authorities, such as a Lunar Economic Development Authority, modelled on the successful Tennessee Valley Authority. Presently, a successor strategy is being suggested in terms of a Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation, by Drs. Buzz Aldrin and Tom Matula. More creative methods of external financing of space enterprise will occur with the formation of innovative institutions for that purpose. With the proper space ethos in a country, extraterrestrial endeavors would be perceived as a primary national interest and asset. The public generally does not fully appreciate the handsome paybacks and spinoffs that resulted from previous space investments. To ensure citizen involvement in underwriting civilian space ventures, more research is needed both by government and universities on this subject.
Were more private space capitalization encouraged, then public policy makers and world leaders would be challenged to cooperate in setting disbursement objectives for the money so raised. The public is more likely to contribute enthusiastically by purchasing space bonds, stocks, or lottery tickets if the initial funds raised were devoted exclusively or primarily to offworld economic, international, and scientific use, in preference to military “star wars” type of activities. For example, the initial target might be in the area of space transportation systems. That is, to build the space “highway” for the first few hundred kilometres out of our “gravity well” into Lower Earth Orbit, the most difficult part of interplanetary travel. Global participation in financing joint space ventures could provide advanced aerospace planes and reusable launch vehicles capable of operating in geosynchronous orbit or beyond…. Just as the Conestoga wagons and railroad opened up Western resources to the nation, so will these less expensive spacecraft bring resources from orbit back to benefit the home planet.
There already exist basic constituencies to enhance the success for alternative forms of space promotion and financing, such as among:
- 3,000,000 members of fifty space advocacy groups worldwide who have an estimated aggregate budget today of more than $30 million;
- beside the science fiction supporters, millions of space media fans from Star Trek television viewers and other numerous motion pictures like 2001 and Apollo 13, to the worldwide audience who witness the satellite televising of space feats or watching television productions, such as Disney’s Plymouth series about the first lunar community;
- the millions of people who make up the global space community – aerospace workers and contractors, astronomers and engineers, professors and students, et al.
Before his death, Gerard O’Neill, the visionary scientist for the high frontier, predicted that it will be private capital that will eventually finance space industrialization and colonization. The continued internationalization of space activities will attract such global investment.
- 3. Refocusing of National Space Agencies
The emergence of new work culture based on knowledge calls for the organizational renewal of varied space administrations within the spacefaring nations. Not only do they need to cooperate more effectively on planning joint ventures, but there may be a need now for creation of a Global Space Administration, Authority, or Agency. Such an entity could coordinate the combined efforts of both the public and private sectors in space development worldwide. Such an international institution might prevent overlapping missions, facilitate cost savings, and concentrate efforts on space macroprojects with the best prospects for ROI. With a modernized charter, this space clearinghouse and research center might obtain more creative financing and planning of space activities, particularly with reference to space technology transfer, as well as attracting more venture capital and licensing space trading corporations. In past centuries, great trading corporations were formed by rulers and/or private investors to facilitate exploration and commerce in unknown or foreign lands. The 21st century may replicate this approach by international space trading entities, comparable to existing multinational communication satellite corporations.
- Increasing Involvement in Space by Government Entities
In the United Statesm the Executive branch of our government can do much to refocus its departments and agencies toward space development. The U. S. State Department could be doing more with the United Nations and other countries in promoting an updating of existing space treaties! Federal departments, such as Commerce, Labor, Transportation, and Treasury should be simplifying rules and regulations to foster private space enterprise. The Department of Energy, for instance, should be facilitating research into space-based energy, The National Laboratories and the National Academy of Science should be devoting more research to space needs and challenages for human beings. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration needs organizational renewal so as to reduce its field centers’ overhead so that more of its funding can be devoted to promotion of exploration and private space enterprise. The NASA television channel and many of its publications could do much more to get public support for their space missions and technological spinoffs.
- 5. Convoking a 2012 White House Conference on Space Enterprise
Traditionally, the Administration has used the WHC strategy to focus national attention on a U.S. problem or challenge. Therefore, in 2011, President Obama should call for a White House Conference on Space Enterprise as a means for promoting jobs, education, science, and technology, as well as space industrialization and settlement. A Commission should be appointed to plan for this event, including invitations to delegates who are knowledgeable professionals and entrepreneurs in the fields of aerospace and finance. My proposal is that three Apollo astronauts be invited to serve as honorary co-chairmen (e.g., Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Harrison Schmitt), while the three operating chairpersons would be from private enterprise and academia (e.g. Professor A. A. Harrison, Elon Musk, and Burt Rutan). The goal would be to hold this event in Washington, D. C, within two years of the conference announcement. All space organizations and media would also be invited to send observers. Once the WHC has made its report and recommendations, then it is up the Administration, Congress, and NASA to implement them so as to revive our economy and retain our world space leadership!
It should be noted that many of the ideas in this “white paper” originated from a NASA Summer Study at the California Space Institute where the author was a Faculty Fellow. The four volumes of proceedings were published under the title, Space Resources by the U. S. Printing Office (NASA SP-509, 1992; now available from www.univelt.com). More specifically, the scholars and experts gathered there endorsed this recommendation for a White House Conference on Space Enterprise in volume 4, Social Concerns
Breakthrough Thinking & Acceleration to Excellence
By Bob Krone, Ph.D.
Provost, Kepler Space University
A paper written for the 10th Annual ASHRM International Conference & Exhibition Session titled “Performance evaluation – do we evaluate the person or the process?” Bahrain, 29 – 31 March 2010.
ABSTRACT
People achieve goals through process. Exponential increases of many societal changes in the world over the past three decades are requiring paradigm shifts in creative thinking and faster moves to constructive actions. But those requirements are not being met satisfactorily. For decades the gap between serious problems and leadership qualified to solve those problems has continued to grow. Resulting destructive organizational, societal and environmental events have had local to global effect. Impacts vary from costly to catastrophic. If correction is to occur major transformations must occur in some areas.
This paper provides ways to simultaneously streamline process and motivate people to accelerate to excellence. The sources flow from the spectrum of physical, social, quality and space sciences plus leadership theory. The Kepler Space University (KSU) is presented as an illustrative example of both breakthrough thinking and acceleration to excellence. A General Normative Model is provided for leadership of any organization to include in its decision making for the evaluation and improvement of people and processes to facilitate breakthrough thinking and acceleration to excellence.
An ASHRM Research Program is proposed for this subject over the next year leading up to the 2011 Conference. At Kepler Space University we have created social networking sites to capture and share your breakthrough human resources ideas and needs for your organization. Those will be shared with you as they develop and formally presented to ASHRM leadership leading up to the 2011 Conference.
Keywords: Research for human resources stimulated major organizational transformation. Earth Sciences, Space Sciences and Policy Sciences. Breakthrough Thinking Case Study. Education. Futures. Humanity’s improvements and survival.
I. WHY CHANGE?
It does not require breakthrough thinking on today’s problems, in 2010, to reach the conclusion that solutions to global societal issues are increasingly inadequate. Evidence is abundant that Yehezkel Dror’s Law #1, published in 1971, that reads:
“While the difficulties and dangers of problems tend to increase at a geometric rate, the number of persons qualified to deal with these problems tends to increase at an arithmetric rate.“ remains dangerously valid forty years later.[1] Our present is much different from the past and the future is bound to be exponentially different than the present. Science and technology have made spectacular advances in those forty years. Those advances are responsible for significant improvement in the quality of millions of lives. I believe those advances have also played a role in preventing an even more acute global economic depression with catastrophic outcomes worse than experienced. But time is not on humanity’s side without reversal of many trends. And those same science and technology advances have involved Mephistophelean bargains with sinister negative potentials for Earth and its inhabitants[2]. Major individual, corporate, and governmental transformations are needed. The Arab Society’s Human Resource Management (ASHRM) goals focus on improving “…the number of people qualified to deal with these problems.” And this paper proposes a global research program to do that through “Breakthrough Thinking and Acceleration to Excellence.”
II. IF WE FAIL
Before presenting how to do breakthrough thinking and acceleration to excellence its
significance needs to be emphasized. Human extinction probabilities dramatically increased in the 20th Century. Without corrective actions in the 21st Century those probabilities will continue to increase. An “On the Beach” scenario remains a nuclear winter Phantom of the Opera.[3] “Science and technology can do more to alleviate human suffering, such as hunger and homelessness, that impact millions of people today. Government’s capacity to govern remains insufficient. Wars and ethnic conflicts have not stopped. Weapons remain the conflict decision makers where ideas should be the arbitrators. The ratio between the haves and the have-nots continues to increase. Retaining the status quo rate of progress is a slow global Pied Piper to a future our descendents will curse us for not preventing.
History does not provide encouragement that needed improvements will happen autonomously. The assumption that evolution must be for good is a myth. The future needs to altar its course so that Dror’s Law #1 no longer applies. Solving complex problems requires conversion to Ross Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety which states that “Variety absorbs variety, defines the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to control a system of a given number of states.“.[4] That Law worked perfectly for the design of the auto-pilot on my F-105D Thunderchief jet. Pilots could fly close formation while in auto-pilot mode because the system took into account the variables and responded to the needs. The Human Resource Management problems we are addressing have many more variables than those encountered in flight, but the Law still applies. When decision makers ignore a variable, acceleration to excellence has a blockage.
My belief is that failure to accelerate to excellence is not an option for local, national or international entities. It’s a necessity. Failure will produce dystopia(s). The costs to humanity of those dystopias will exceed history’s devastations. We have a moral responsibility to each other and to humanity to capture and implement breakthrough thinking. It is a huge challenge that has more political, cultural and social components than does science and technology.[5]
III. THE KEPLER SPACE UNIVERSITY CASE
This paper so far has defined the need for paradigm shift thinking and actions. The
discussion has focused so far on the outcomes of inaction or failure. But our world is blessed with brilliant optimistic dreamers, analysts and thinkers who daily design better futures. The goal of the Kepler Space University Research Program, begun at the ASHRM 2010 Conference in Bahrain, is to capture the experience and brainpower of those innovative thinkers to create a flood of transformative concepts and designs for humanity’s future. Literature of the Space communities and organizations is one prime example. That knowledge operates from the conviction that the Law of Space Abundance[6] is valid. But, Earth sciences also have a wealth of supporting evidence for the belief that the human brain is the reason humanity has not suffered the fate of the dinosaurs. One KSU Program is “Defrosting Frozen Wisdom.” Electronic networking technology and Ideas Unlimited[7] are the drivers of that program which will merge with the ASHRM 2010 – 2011 Research Program.
Until that global data is aggregated and employed I will share a personal example.
In my Foreword to Dr. Richard Kirby’s book The People’s Astronomy, I wrote: “Dr. Richard S. Kirby has been intellectually orbiting Earth with the ideas in this book since he was an eleven-year old scientist in England in 1961. On 1 January 2009, Dr. Kirby activated his de-orbit rocket, opened the Kepler Space University, and now brings to Earth The People’s Astronomy.”[8] Richard Kirby had more original new ideas daily than many people have in a lifetime. And his inspirational leadership created a team of professionals capable of putting his ideas to work. With no resources other than intellectual brilliance he led us to open the KSU cyberspace doors. Actually formal planning and team building for the university began on that date. The team of professionals who did that planning were for the most part members of the 42 co-authors who created Beyond Earth: The Future of Humans in Space, 2006.[9]
Rich Kirby and I communicated by e-mail and phone daily. Every day would bring new ideas. I liked them all. On September 24th of 2009 he called me at noon and asked me to record his verbal description of his “Theory of Acceleration.” I did. At 5pm that day Rich’s close colleague in Edmonds, Washington, Al Dolan, called me with the sad news that Richard Kirby had died at 3pm. A large number of his Team travelled to Edmonds to pay tribute to his genius and inspirational leadership at Services on 4 October 2009.
The Breakthrough Thinking and Theory of Acceleration , that were Dr, Kirby’s
trademarks, had been the honey and the glue that formed the Kepler Team. The momentum he inspired did not decrease with his death. By 1 January 2010 Bob Frantz had assumed the Presidency, our Team of academic and space professionals had designed seven schools and a virtual high school, we formed a corporation registered in California, had created a Think Tank to capture the wisdom of Vietnam Prisoners of War, and scheduled the first commencement for the award of the PhD in Earth and Space Sciences to Bob Frantz for May 2010 at the International Space Development Conference in Chicago.
The seven schools and virtual high schools created are depicted in Figure 1, following. Courses are 100% online accessible from any spot on Earth. KSU in a year’s time became a reality. And no one was paid a salary nor are there any bricks and mortar overhead expenses. KSU, and its Professors, are paid a percentage of enrolled student tuition. As Dr. Terry Tang, KSU Professor of Psychology and Director of Research, wrote in a 5 March 2010 e-mail: “This example of the power of ideas and good leadership is not dependent upon financial resources because we are motivated by pro bono values, fun, intellectual curiosity and a poet’s vision, Peace on Earth Through Space. Our work is empirical and transparent for all to see and will be tested by who does what by when.” Pro Bono is the legal term for volunteering legal services when there is a potential for payments later. In our case there are immediate rewards of our volunteering of time and talents. The satisfaction of working with talented people toward noble goals is often its own reward. There is also a higher probability of spin-off material rewards from that collaborative creativity than from traditional business plans.
Figure 1. KSU Academic Components.
IV. A NORMATIVE UNIVERSAL MODEL
The prescriptive model on which to base the theory and to design applications is based on the following definitions of “Breakthrough Thinking” and “Acceleration to Excellence”:
- BREAKTHROUGH THINKING = Visioning of a desired difficult achievement. Assume initially that there are no barriers. Involve cross cultural and cross disciplinary people. Keep all ideas – no matter how “crazy”. Tolerate ambiguity. Use a systems, or full spectrum, approach and ask “What are all the involved qualitative and quantitative variables? Capture both explicit knowledge (from learning) and tacit knowledge (from living). Define preferred future values.[10]
- ACCELERATION TO EXCELLENCE = Insure the goal or task lies within your well defined values system. Start it before breakfast tomorrow. Collaborate for rapid decisions. Delegate to qualified people. Continual communications on progress to revise needed tactics. Substitute thinking of alternatives to bypass moves that may stall progress.[11]
The prescriptions of the “Breakthrough Thinking and Acceleration to Excellence Model” were created for the 10th Annual ASHRM 2010 Conference in Bahrain. Future collaboration and networking during the Research Program will result in editing of the theory and the documentation of real-world global applications. The ten draft prescriptions are shown in Figure 2, with brief descriptions and justifications following. A task of the ASHRM Research Project will be to edit the model to meet the criteria of : 1) Do the components create a valid systems approach? ; 2) What editing is needed for specific applications?; and, 3) What research questions should be selected for investigation?
|
|
Figure 2. Prescriptions for the “Breakthrough Thinking and
Acceleration to Excellence Universal Model.
Now for how to achieve Breakthrough Thinking and Acceleration to Excellence.
The following ten prescriptions are considered by the Kepler Space University Team as necessary and sufficient. They are listed by priority but should be created simultaneously.
1) Moral, Ethical and Inspirational Leadership. Without doubt this is the most important need. Without inspirational leadership motivation cannot be sustained. But it, too, will fail if moral and ethical leadership is missing. History, and today’s news, are filled with stories of career and organizational destruction because of immoral or unethical behavior.[12]
2) Noble Goals. Visions and Values. Purpose drives actions. Individuals and organizations can only be successful if their strategic ends are recognized good by all constituents and their values propel means for their actions and desires consistent with a philosophy all team members support.
3) A Streamlined Decision Making System. For forty years I have taught Systems Theory and Management at the doctoral and masters levels. For each class of professionals I asked: “What are the three most difficult problems in your organization?” With rare exceptions the two top problems were: Decision Making Systems and Communications. That is true for public, private , non-profit, national or international entities. There are valid reasons why those two are very difficult; but for breakthrough advances you must streamline your decision system so it pulls people along, not acts as a barrier.
4) A Quality Legal Foundation. The newest faculty member of KSU is Dr. David Schrunk. His professional qualifications are unique. He is a medical doctor, an aerospace engineer, Space author and a quality scientist who has compared Quality Sciences applications in health care and aerospace with those in Law. His finding is that law develops through political feasibility and precedent and has no bases in Quality Sciences nor is it systematically solving social problems. These are profound findings. KSU is supporting his teaching, research and applications to the real world.[13] His findings are consistent with those Policy Scientists whose research has shown that the capacity to govern universally is not keeping up with global needs.[14]
5) Redundant Communications. Communications technology is creating revolutions world wide. Accelerating to excellence in your organization after breakthrough thinking, and to invent that thinking, will require full employment of electronic and personal communications.
6) Capture Global Tacit Knowledge and Brainpower. Tacit Knowledge — i.e. knowledge people have from living– as opposed to Explicit Knowledge that people get from learning, has been researched since the 1950s[15]. It’s profound influence on decision making and performance has yet to be fully investigated. The ASHRM – KSU Research Project will combine the identification of Tacit Knowledge along with “Defrosting the Frozen Wisdom” and capturing global brainpower.[16]
7) Defrost Frozen Wisdom. A KSU Program facilitated by current information system technology designed to capture and document for research and applications the breakthrough thinking throughout history and of today’s seniors.
8) Cross-Cultural Learning. This is a requirement already being exploited by ASHRM leadership and members.
Continual Evaluation and Improvem
[1] Yehezkel Dror is the Founder and leading scholar of The Policy Sciences. His fifty years of research and publications have created a world-class intellectual legacy. For his Dror’s Law #2 see his Ventures in Policy, 1971, New York, American Elsevier.
[2] In the famous German story “Dr. Faustus,” written by Christopher Marlowe in 1592, Dr. Faustus sold his eternal soul to Mephistopheles, the Devil, for worldly gains. History is filled with tragedies fitting the metaphor. For some examples see Robert M. Krone, Ph.D. Essays for Systems Managers, Chapter 10, Mephistophelean Bargains,” pp 41-43.
[3] “On the Beach” was a 1958 film, directed by Stan Kramer describing human extinction progessing over the Earth from nuclear bomb radiation.
[4] This law was published in William Ross Ashby’s 1952 Design for a Brain, Chapman & Hall. His applications began with cybernetic and complex engineering systems, but it also is relevant universally to solving complex social, political and organizational problems.
[5] See Robert M. Krone “Science and Technology for What?”, 2005, Research Policy Review, Vol 22 Number 4 (July 2005)..pp 555-570.
[6] KSU leadership created The Law of Space Abundance from fifty years of literature and research providing evidence of “Space Offers Unbounded Resources for Humanity’s Needs.”
[7] See Dr. Bob and Sue Krone, Capturing Global Brainpower, 2007, Infinity Press.
[8] Richard Kirby, Ph.D. The People’s Astronomy, 2010, forthcoming.
[9][9] It was the publication of Bob Krone, PhD, Editor, Beyond Earth: The Future of Humans in Space, 2006, Apogee Space Press, that was the final trigger that convinced us to launch the University. Universe Today listed that book as one of the three best Space books in 2006.
[10] I had the advantage of sharing professorship time at the University of Southern California (USC) with Dr. Gerald Nadler, President of the Center for Breakthrough Thinking and Dr. Warren Bennis, internationally known organizational leadership and development scholar. Search Google for their massive legacies. KSU has also benefitted from its association with Dr. Sidney Parnes, co-founder of the International Center for Studies in Creativity.and a lifetime trustee of the Creative Education Foundation (CEF). His legacy for creative problem solving is unmatched. The search for ways to achieve common values consensus is a critically important component.
[11] On 17 October 2009 I presented an “Acceleration to Excellence” brief to the leadership of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) recommending that it become an ASQ Strategy and Learning Subject.
[12]The KSU Faculty Member most qualified on this subject is Pastor (Dr.) Lawrence Downing. He has been researching, Teaching and writing on Moral Leadership for forty years. And he is a role model himself for all he teaches. My life has been enriched by learning from him.
[13] Registration for Dr. Schrunk’s Course is now open at www.keplerspaceuniversity.org.
[14] The primary scholar providing evidence of this finding is Yehezkel Dror. See his classic The Capacity to Govern, 1994, London, Frank Cass.
[15][15] Search Google, but start with the life works of Michael Polyani who created the term.
[16] Sr. Bob and Sue Krone, 2007, Ideas Unlimited: Capturing Global Brainpower, Infinity Press.
Let’s think about “True lies: delusions and lie-detection technology” by D. D. Langleben, F. M. Dattilio & T. G. Guthel, The Journal of Psychiatry & Law34/Fall 2006, 351-370, which stated, “Despite controversial validity, inadmissibility as legal evidence and the ban in non-government pre-employment screening, poly graph and its variants remain the only common psychophysiological methods of lie detection” p 356). These technologies and methods are basically the same as those used in the 1960s. Let’s consider inventing new technologies, transducers and detection procedures based upon increased understanding of psychophysiological homeostasis and brain and body activities during delusional and non-delusional states.
Deviations from and compliance with norms are used for identifying whether the thoughts expressed are more or less delusional or creative. One’s thoughts are affected by sensory (perception is the interpretation of sensation) and physical (chemical, electrical, hormonal, etc.) influences. One’s thoughts can become more knowable to others by knowing the thinker’s biology better.
Several astronauts returning from space were alleged to be delusional. In 2007 Lisa Norwak was charged with stalking and Story Musgrave spoke about extraterrestrials. Edgar Mitchell stated his belief in UFOs in 1971. American Journal of Psychiatry published concerns about mental illness in space in 1959, “Symposium on Space Psychiatry.”
Delusions are false, persistent beliefs that are unsubstantiated by sensory or objective evidence. Non-bizarre delusions may become examples of creative thinking when solutions to problems are consequences. Creativity is the ability to generate novel solutions to problems. It is a trait characterized by originality, ingenuity and flexibility and is essential for innovation and space development.
The consequence of the thought defines whether it is delusional or creative. This is post hoc semantics. Knowing flexibility in thinking is proposed for preventing, detecting, identifying and treating delusions. Cognitive flexibility is also proposed for increasing creativity. Flexibility, if too much, can become a distraction. Sustained effort toward an objective requires stability, direction and consensual coordination for teamwork. No single person or small group, however inspired, can be allowed to inflict possible damage through indirection. Team members with prescriptive contracts clarifying freedom rights, work requirements and norms can proactively modulate flexibility for sustaining directional efforts and avoiding delusions and other distractions.
Norms for consideration are 1) statistical, 2) mission-defined, behaviors agreed to and expected from all members of the mission, 3) operational norms, those defined empirically, 4) cultural (socially appropriate-inappropriate), subgroup, situational, 5) medical, International Classification of Disease, 12th Ed., Clinical Manual or Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Ed., Text Revision, 2000, next edition in 2012, 6) forensic norms, those which have been adjudicated. When noncompliance with contractual norms occurs, administrative intervention and controls are warranted.
Deviations from and compliance with norms are used for identifying whether the thoughts expressed are more or less delusional or creative. One’s thoughts are affected by sensory (perception is the interpretation of sensation) and physical
(chemical, electrical, hormonal, etc.) influences. Thoughts are knowable to the thinker or by others only through the thinker’s biology and or behavior. By providing feedback information on these to the thinker, one can modify her or his thinking and behaving. Risk vs. Benefit Analyses of behaviors in terms of dangerousness to persons or property can be used for providing guidance.
_______________________________________________________________________________
*Presented at the Space, Propulsion & Energy Sciences International Forum February 23-29, 2010, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Space, Propulsion & Energy Sciences, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, Maryland 20723-6099
Tang, 2
By establishing Within Subject Operational Response Norms from 1. electric sensory stimuli eliciting Physiological Orientation Responses within electro-dermal, blood flow and respiratory systems and from 2. cognitive perceptual stimuli, i.e., auditory or visual semantic stimuli, eliciting behavioral, i.e., stimuli association verbalization, voice frequency parameters, hand-arm movements, pupiliary and facial changes, these Response Norm Baselines can be compared with subsequent responses to presentations of similar sensory and perceptual stimuli.
Before establishing Operational Response Norms, knowing nerve health status with evoke potentials testing, i.e., refer to The Very Basics In Evoked Potentials Testing Study Guide, Kennewick, WA: Cadwell Laboratories, Inc., 1989, is recommended.
When a physical stimulus is followed by a lesser diversity of responses within two seconds, there is a greater probability it is a sensory stimulus, a physical agent causing physiological changes at a sense receptor or organ.
When a physical stimulus is followed by a sensory stimulus and as time from physical stimulus offset continues, probability of sensory stimulus becoming a perceptual stimulus increases as response diversity increases because perception is the interpretation of sensation.
Once homeostatic response norm baselines are established, subsequent testing for deviations from homeostasis can be accomplished within twenty minutes. Detection of deviation would warrant additional assessment, inquiry, and Mental Status Examination.
Recent references relating psychophysiological parameters to mental disorders are Elsevier: ‘Abnormal visual scan paths: a psychophysiological marker of delusions in schizophrenia,” Schizophrenia Research, 2009, 29, 3, 235-245; C. Papageorgiou, E. Ventouras, L. Lykouras, N. Uzunoglu & GN. Christodoulou, “Psychophysiological evidence for altered information processin in delusional misidentification syndromes,” Progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 2003, May; 27, 3, 365-72; J. T. Cacioppo, L. G. Tassinary, G. G. Berntson (Eds.), Hnadbook of Psychophysiology. London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000. Operational procedures used in these studies typically require more than one hour and are not employed for the detection of delusions.
Hypothesis 1a: Within subject variability in physical response to Capacitor Discharge Electric stimuli is less than variability in physical response to Alternating Current Electric stimuli which is less than variability in physical response to Direct Current Electric stimuli.
Hypothesis 1b: With Alternating Current the longer the wavelength the greater the physical response variability.
Hypothesis 2: As inter-stimulus-interval increases from 12 to 20 to 30 seconds, variability in physical response to electric stimuli increases.
Hypothesis 3: As duration of electric stimuli increases from 0.3 to 3.0 seconds, variability in physical response to electric stimuli increases.
Hypothesis 4: Physical response variability to Neutral Words paired with electric stimuli is less than physical response to Delusion-Associated Words paired with electric shock. Delusion-Associated Words are those with connotations of grandiosity, megalomania, omnipotence, special relationship with famous person or deity, persecution, alien control, special identity, preoccupations, self-depreciation, guilt, obsessions, religious etc., see P. 145, The Clinician’s Thesaurus 3, E. L. Zuckerman, Pittsburg, PA: The Clinician’s Toolbox, 1993.
Within subject non-normative responses to electric and semantic stimuli and compliance with norms are used for identifying whether cognition is more or less delusional or creative. One’s thoughts are affected by sensory and physical (chemical, electrical, hormonal, etc.) influences. One’s non-verbalized thoughts can become more knowable to others by studying the thinker’s psychophysiological responses to semantic and other cognitive stimuli, i.e., tunes, picture icons, symbols.
As state earlier, consequence of the thought defines whether it is delusional or creative. Having a statement of agreed upon expectation of who does what by when and not complying with the statement may be used as an indicator of delusional thoughts whereas fulfilling the statement may indicate creative ability. Recordings of psychophysiological and semantic responses made close
Tang, 3
in time to targeted verbalizations being assessed when compared with baseline data can are used for detecting delusional cognition.
Severe delusions may be called delirium, a condition characterized by swearing, restlessness, disorientation, and hallucination, a sensory experience in the absence of sensory stimulation that is confused with reality. Paranoia is a psychotic disorder in which a person shows a persistent delusional system but not the confusion of a paranoid schizophrenic.
Paranoid Personality Disorder is characterized by persistent suspiciousness but not the disorganization of paranoid schizophrenia, a subtype of schizophrenia characterized primarily by delusions–commonly of persecution—and by vivid hallucinations.
This psychotic mental disorder is diagnosed when prominent nonbizarre delusions are present for at least one month and the symptom criteria for Schizophrenia have never been met. Hallucinations may be present, but auditory or visual hallucinations cannot be prominent. Olfactory or tactile hallucinations may be prominent, but only if they are related to the content of the delusion. Psychosocial functioning may not be impaired and any co-occurring mood episodes must be of relatively brief duration.
Diagnostic criteria for 297.1 Delusional Disorder
|
certain kinds of conditions where the interpretation of being threatened is more accurate.”
Tang, 4
Researchers in the field of human functional brain mapping using positron emission tomography (PET), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to indirectly detect neural activity simultaneously occurring in various regions of the brain through metabolic and blood-oxygenation measures are sharing their efforts in identifying function- structure relationships for the purpose of developing a probabilistic functional atlas at www.brainmap.org. A reference of such work is, ‘Modeling Dynamic Functional Neuroimaging Data Using Structural Equation Modeling’ by L. R. Price, A. R. Laird, P. T. Fox and R. J. Ingham, Structural Equation Modeling, 16:147-162, 2009. A brain site for delusion has not been identified but probable sites for other mental states have been identified, i.e., B. Knutson and J. C. Cooper, “Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Reward Prediction,” Current Opinions in Neurology, 2005, 18, 4, 411-17.
Delusions are irrational beliefs held with conviction. Non-bizarre delusions are considered to be plausible; there is a
possibility that what the person believes could be real a small proportion of the time. Bizarre delusions focus on that which is impossible in reality. Also, for beliefs to be considered delusional, the content or themes of the beliefs must be uncommon in the person’s culture or religion.
The person with delusional disorder may or may not come to the attention of others. While the person with delusional disorder may be distressed because of it, she or he may not understand that anything is wrong with her or his thinking. One may attribute obstacles or problems in functioning to the delusional rather than to the veridical, separating them from their control. Unless the form of the delusion affects others who react to it significantly, the person with delusions may adapt sufficiently well to live without other’s interference. When persons with delusions seek medical or mental health care, the motivation is usually to decrease feelings of dissatisfaction and negative emotions such as depression, worry, fears, irritability or insomnia.
Delusions are usually absent when physically and mentally healthy persons with specific skills and abilities become part of a working team although a predisposition may exist. Emergence of delusions may be regarded as dysfunctional cognitive processing. Antecedents to this dysfunction may be an underlying predisposition, a too severe of a stressor, ambiguity or stimuli misperceived. Interpersonal cognitive problems may involve the manner in which a person develops conclusions about another person and or about causation of unusual perceptions or negative events. Perception may be selective and biased towards supporting preexisting theories and ideas so erroneous conclusions made are deemed valid.
Currently, clinical and forensic testing for dysfunctional cognitive processing should require a minimum of two hours per session with privacy, cooperation and a comfortable setting using standardized procedures. Three tests frequently used for obtaining baseline personality characteristics or antecedent values prior to delusional episode are the MMPI Personality Profiles, California Personality Inventory (CPI), and MCMI-III. After a suspected delusional episode has occurred or is present, these tests can again be given for identifying test value changes, if any, have occurred. In this manner psychometric parameters of cognition may be established.
Obtaining two hours of cooperation may be impossible. Perhaps 20 minutes cooperation for obtaining psychophysiological data for comparing with prerecorded biometric, behavioral and semantic baselines will enable a higher probability of successfully detecting delusions.
The MMPI uses an empirical keying approach by asking questions with answers endorsed by persons with known diagnoses of certain pathologies for constructing profile scales. It also has scales designed for detecting attempts to present oneself favorably, for detecting ‘faking good or bad,’ for being defensive, for being statistically valid, for inconsistent responding, and for attentiveness.
The CPI is non-clinical. It consists of inventory test items evaluating interpersonal behavior and social interaction in normal individuals. The CPI provides measurements of ‘common folk’ scales of character along the lines of Weberian prototypical exemplars.
MCMI-III clinical norms are constructed from persons with a wide variety of diagnoses seen in independent practices, clinics, forensic and correctional settings, mental health centers, hospitals, etc. References to Delusional Disorder are on pages 24, 84 and 183 in its 4th Edition manual (2009). It relates the norms to Axis I and II of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Ed., Text Revision, 2000.
Mental Status Examination is a generic method of gathering information throughout the patient encounter organizing
observations in a format for the clinical record. Areas addressed usually include 1) Attitude, appearance & motor activity, 2)
Mood & affect, 3) Structure of thought & speech, 4) Content of thought & speech, 5) Perception, 6) Sensorium & cognition, 7) Potential for destructiveness, 8) Insight & motivation.
Tang, 5
Forensic dissatisfaction with information obtained from psychometric tests and mental status examinations led the American Bar Association to advocate in 1995 Mental Disability Law, A Primer (5th Ed.) using functional analyses for understanding behavior. A functional analysis is a systematic study of behavior in which one identifies the stimuli that
triggers it (antecedent) and the reinforcers that maintain it (consequence).
The ABC-Model regards behavior as connecting antecedents to consequences. By relating Antecedents to Behavior to Consequences, researchers can hypothesize cause and effect relationships by identifying, changing or controlling antecedents and then assessing or evaluating behavioral consequences. Antecedents are events and conditions that occur prior to the targeted behavior being analyzed. They are not necessarily the cause of the behavior. Antecedents are external in the
environment or internal within the person performing the behavior. Environmental antecedents may be termed setting events. Internal antecedents may be termed precursors. Stimuli present just prior to the onset of the targeted behavior may be called triggers. Analyzing the antecedents to delusional behaviors and consequences increases understanding why delusions occur and provides a chain of forensic evidence linked to cognition.
During employment contract orientation, baseline homeostatic profiles of behavioral and biological responses to stimuli can be developed. The stimuli can be visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, semantic or verbal and various forms, intensities and durations of electric shock. Responses recorded can be heart and respiration rate, brain site activity, galvanic skin response (GSR); facial and hand tremors; semantic verbalizations; voice stress indicators; pupil dilation, blood flow, ‘vagal tone’ (vagus nerve and respiration activity indicating friendly optimism, etc., D. Keltner, Born to be Good. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2009, p. 241).
During and after employment such profiles can be obtained periodically for monitoring employee’s behavioral, biological and cognitive states. If a subsequent profile is significantly different from the preceding profile, possible causes for the difference can be investigated. With compliance with minimal operational procedures, profile monitoring sessions can be completed within twenty minutes.
Depending on the intensity, the stimulus can evoke a gradient of autonomic responses from a mild one that recovers and habituates quickly to repeated stimulation. As the stimulus presented increases in intensity or cognitive importance, the autonomic responses evoked are orienting responses requiring several to fewer than a dozen seconds to recover and many repeated stimulations before habituating.
When stimulus intensity is more intense, evoked autonomic responses are ‘startle responses’ requiring longer recovery and habituation periods. If the stimulus is aversive or noxious, autonomic ‘defensive’ responses are evoked and the Sympathetic Nervous System becomes primed to flee or fight.
Visual and auditory stimuli can be words paired with noxious stimuli so that both Classical and Instrumental Conditioning and semantic generalization occur. Stimulus presentation can be three to thirty seconds per stimulus and dependent psychophysiological and behavioral responses continuously monitored with biological transducers and video.
By knowing baseline autonomic and cognitive indices of semantic conditioning and generalization and observing for subsequent changes, inferences about cognition and cognitive processing of stimulus input can be made (T. Tang, “Autonomic and Cognitive Indices of Semantic Conditioning and Generalization,” a dissertation presented to the University of Southern California, 1972). Perception, the interpretation of sensations, can be functionally evaluated as being veridical or delusional.
Independent stimulus presentation with ongoing monitoring of dependent behavioral and psychophysiological responses can also occur with olfactory stimuli or scents affecting chemical communication processing by sensory neurons in olfactory bulbs and vomeronasal organs. Research knowledge of these processes is not as thorough as that known in the visual, auditory and tactile information processing systems.
All sensory input processes are part of the Sympathetic Nervous System. All stimuli above threshold affect the body but may or may not affect cognition. How such stimuli are processed may or may not result in a delusion. Physiological correlates and substrates of cognition change when stimuli are interpreted during perception and thinking.
Dysfunctional cognitive processing that result in delusion may be due to impairments in psychoneurophysiological interpersonal interactions. Until biotechnological psychophysiological research advances more to distinguish between the veridical and the delusional, periodic and post-mission or post-task debriefings with Mental Status Examination can be employed for ensuring fitness for employment and team work.
Tang, 6
Mental Status Examination Screenings
Yale Medical School’s PRIME (Prevention through Risk Identification, Management & Education) Research Clinic
Mental and emotional problems are similar to other medical illnesses. If left untreated, they are likelyto get worse over time. The PRIME Research Clinic is dedicated to the early identification and treatment of serious mental and emotional problems.
RISK FACTORS
- Trouble at school or work
- Difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly
- Suspiciousness or mistrust of others
- Changes in the way things look or sound
- Odd thinking or behavior
- Withdrawal from friends and family
- Poor personal hygiene
- ______________________________________________________________________________________
Am J Psychiatry 159:863-865, May 2002, American Psychiatric Association |
§ Prospective Diagnosis of the Initial Prodrome for Schizophrenia Based on the Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes: Preliminary Evidence of Interrater Reliability and Predictive Validity
- Tandy J. Miller, Ph.D., Thomas H. McGlashan, M.D., Joanna Lifshey Rosen, Psy.D., Lubna Somjee, Ph.D., Philip J. Markovich, B.A., Kelly Stein, Ph.D., and Scott W. Woods, M.D.
- The Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes is a semistructured diagnostic interview including five components: the 19-item Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (4), a version of the Global Assessment of Functioning with well-defined anchor points, a DSM-IV schizotypal personality disorder checklist, a family history of mental illness, and a checklist for the Criteria of Prodromal Syndromes. The Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes is designed for use by experienced clinicians who have undergone specific training. __________________________________________________________________________
- NORMAL REACTIONS ON DIFFICULTIES IN LIFE
There are many types of behavior that really is normal, although it can be perceived as the opposite of friends, family and teachers. We are different and can have different reactions to difficult periods in life. A person can be: - raunchy – thoughtless – lazy – egotistical – rash – irritable – rebellious – shy – withdrawn – hypersensitive – takes easily to tears
- These ways to behave can occur as normal and short-term reactions to stressful events or problems such as:
- Violation of a close relationship – fail the exam – death to one who was a close – family crises – relocation – physical disease and other types of crisis
Early signs
A person may become:
- Suspicious
- Depressed
- Anxious
- Tense
- Irritable
- Angry
- A person may feel: their thoughts have speed up or slowed down
- things are somehow different
- things around them seem changed
- A person may experience: mood swings
- sleep disturbance
- appetite changes
- loss of energy or motivation
difficulty in concentrating or remembering things
Family and friends may notice when:
- a person’s behaviour changes
- a person’s studies or work deteriorates
- a person becomes more withdrawn or isolated
- a person is no longer interested in socialising
- a person becomes less active
Special Feature for NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY’S AD ASTRA MAGAZINE (11/20/09)
REDUCE THE NATIONAL DEFICIT
BY UTILIZING SPACE RESOURCES
– NSS CONVEYS A CASE FOR INVESTMENT TO PUBLIC
Philip Robert Harris, Ph. D.*
Americans today have many serious economic concerns. The public, like members of government, seemingly are fixated on a $12 plus trillion national debt that originated with the last Presidential administration. It is a debt that daily grows alarmingly when interest is added! In this serious financial recession, the attention of most citizens is not on outer space and its development. And yet there is a case for the National Space Society and other space advocates to make to the White House and United States Congress in support of space enterprise. Possibly, the only hope we have for reducing the national deficit is by immediately utilizing space resources.
NSS members have to make a case for space investment that convinces taxpayers there is wealth offworld to be obtained. The profitable satellite industry has already proven the case for greater funding of our national policy, A Vision of Space Exploration. Soon space tourism will be making profits. Now is the time to enlighten our country;s men and women on the vast resources to be tapped on the Moon. We could not only mine the lunar surface for valuable minerals and gems, but we could use it water and regolith to support luna industrialization and settlement! Instead of following the conclusions of the myopic “we-can’t-afford it” report by the Augustine Committee, NSS needs to get the message across to President Obama and NASA Administrator Bolden that we should start now getting ROI on the Apollo of four decades ago. One way to start is for private and public enterprise to form a Global Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation, as now proposed by Drs. Buzz Aldrin and Tom Matula.
The global space community has an obligation to show our fellow citizens that by moving beyond Earth, we can preserve our planet and keep it a green paradise. Gradually, all of the mining that despoils our home planet can be transferred to the isolation of the Moon, including atomic and fusion energy. Instead of using fossil fuels that pollute our environment, there is also endless, clean space-based energy to use, such as through a Lunar Solar Power System. We need the vision of a Krafft Ehricke on the extraterrestrial imperative – he had open mindset about making the most of solar system opportunities!
TRANSFORMING SPACE VISIONS INTO REALITIES
Human dreams and ideas span time, often taking centuries before being transformed into worthwhile activities. Some of our forebears dimly perceived the spectacular achievements which this generation has witnessed since the dawn of the Space Age. But so few are aware of humanity’s challenges ahead in exploring and settling offworld! Ultimately, that process will lead to a higher state of consciousness for our species, as well as a new designation for humanity – spacekind. Only then will our species truly achieve its potential.
In the future, our descendants may remember the 21th century primarily for proving that humanity is not Earth-bound, but able to live and work in a microgravity environment. The last five decades may be viewed as a watershed period for commercial space and living aloft. It was a period when nations shifted from space competition to cooperation, from a space race to forming joint ventures for international macroprojects. The satellite industry not only turned our world into a global village by its communication capabilities, but demonstrated that it could be a profitable enterprise. Furthermore, orbital imaging and sensing have shown myriad practical applications on Earth, even in protecting our planet’s environment. The Russian space station Mir became the first platform for true international cooperation by agreements which brought aboard Europeans, Japanese, and even Americans. Today, the International Space Station expands the opportunities for some 16 national partners to practice synergy. Now spacefaring nations have much to gain in forming partnerships in lunar missions, particularly toward the goal of returning humans to the Moon permanently by year 2020. Perhaps this
Vision for Space Exploration was best expressed over twenty years ago in these prophetic words:
To lead the exploration and development of the space frontier, advancing science, technology, and enterprise, by building institutions and systems that make accessible vast new resources and support human settlements beyond Earth orbit, from the highlands of the Moon to the plains of Mars.
(Pioneering the Space Frontier, 1986, p. 2.)
To actually implement such lofty goals requires global transformational leadership in both the public and the private sectors now and in the centuries ahead. 1 The business community at large, not just aerospace and communication satellite companies, must lead in the creation of a space ethos that supports an enlarged and well-funded space program, both in the public and private sectors. Yes, space is a place for fulfilling dreams, as well as for acquiring knowledge and promoting free enterprise !
But how? Specifically, as our case in point, how can America further capitalize upon its $20 billion plus investment in the Apollo lunar landings? How can all nations get payback on their total space expenditures, especially through the utilization of space-based resources? Some innovative answers may be gleaned from the reports and recommendations of various space studies over past decades (e.g., NASA-SP509, 1992). Apart from the technical and economic insights, especially for the establishment of a lunar base, these studies include proposals for:
· building public consensus and financial support for the space program;
· initiatives within the private sector to foster the peaceful use of space by its exploration and industrialization;
· legislation that would transform a nation’s space agency, as well as its policies and procedures so as to facilitate private space enterprise;
· promotion of educational and research endeavors that prepare the next generation of spacefarers for offworld challenges!
At this juncture, the justification for peaceful and commercial development of space resources is more human and scientific, than economic or political. The rationale for moving forward on the space frontier have to do with discoveries which maintain technological excellence, security, and leadership in a knowledge culture. Space undertakings should aim at benefiting the Earth’s peoples, especially in the developing economies, by technology transfer within the twin planet economies of Earth-Space. Our aspirations should be to actualize our potential by extending human presence permanently into our universe. One proposal from Kim Peart of far-away Tasmania is worthy of implementation – namely, the formation of a Solar Peace Corps to take a proactive role to ensure peace and security within our solar system, especially through utilization of the Sun’s energy and system’s resources. The aim is to connect Earth’s children to the wealth of a Solar economy.
Here are three dimensions of a personal action plan for NSS members to participate toward creation of a spacefaring civilization:
1. National, Regional, and Global Convocations on Space Enterprises
Individuals and organizations can raise the public’s awareness by sponsoring space enterprise conferences at both the local and world levels. Although this can be accomplished in actual group meetings, the best prospects for raising public consciousness on the necessity of space exploration and development may be the Internet and international television. Think back to the global media encounters sponsored by rock stars, environmentalists, and others with a humanitarian cause. Suppose supporters were to promote a Global Space Day that included international television and computer exchanges about humanity’s future beyond Earth. The primary objective would be to further understanding and consensus on improving the quality of life for this planet inhabitants by peaceful, commercial exploration and use of space-based resources. The second purpose would be to help earthkind appreciate the importance of human migration to the Moon. The impact on world citizens would be greater than present space gatherings among only the professional elite. It is the masses of our planetary inhabitants who need education about the necessity for our moving beyond Earth. If NSS were to transform itself into the World Space Society, it would be positioned to become global leaders in this process. Currently, there is a plan underway to create a World Space Fair.
.
2. Alternative Funding of Space Enterprises
New options must be pursued for financing space ventures, other than through the taxes and the annual governmental budget allocations. That traditional public sector approach will not obtain the $700 billion which the National Commission on Space estimated is required over the next five decades to open up the space frontier. Nor will the $200 billion needed to build a lunar base be secured by usual financial methods. Where are funds of that magnitude to come from, especially with huge national deficits and legislative spending restrictions? The history of both the Shuttle and the Space Station to date has been that of government cut-backs which undermined NASA designs and safety in mission planning.
Creating a space ethos implies getting the masses of citizens involved, in some manner or other in space ventures. In a democratic, free enterprise society, what better way to accomplish this than as a “financial investor.” Innovative ways for space financing must be sought that provide citizens and entrepreneurs with financial incentives, like tax rebates, sale of bonds, or opportunities for private equity funds. To capitalize upon the enormous public interest and good will generated by the space program in the past sixty years, alternative or supplementary funding possibilities should be explored, including the authorization of stock sales in limited R&D technological space partnerships or trading companies. Recall that back in the Sputnik days, the COMSAT offering on the stock exchange was oversubscribed by the public!
Public lotteries to support scientific exploration and civilizing ventures in newly opened frontiers are part of national experiences. Since the 15th century, European countries have used the lottery device to raise capital for public works. In 1612, the English used this means to support the Jamestown settlement. In the New World, the colonists and first citizens of the American republic employed this mechanism to fund the establishment of higher education, including Harvard, Kings College (Columbia), Dartmouth, Yale, and other universities. In the 19th century, Americans again used lotteries to open up the Western frontier. During the present decade in the U.S.A., for instance, lotteries have become popular again within states to fund public services, particularly education. Today, many foreign countries, such as Australia and Mexico, successfully utilize lotteries or games of chance as a means of raising money to accomplish social goals. NSS should lobby for establishment of a Global Lottery Fund.
If income produced from new funding sources is to alleviate the tax burden of central governments relative to space expenditures, the investment scope must be vastly broadened. That is what underlies the proposal of attorney Declan O’Donnell and myself to establish space authorities, such as a Lunar Economic Development Authority, modelled on the successful TVA. Presently, a successor strategy is being suggested in Lunar Infrastructure Development Corporation, open to global participation More creative methods of external financing of space enterprise will occur with the formation of innovative institutions for that purpose.With the proper space ethos in a country, extraterrestrial endeavors would be perceived as a primary national interest and asset. The public generally does not fully appreciate the handsome paybacks that resulted from previous space investments. To ensure citizen involvement in underwriting civilian space ventures, more research is needed both by government and universities on this subject.
Were more private space capitalization encouraged, then public policy makers and world leaders would be challenged to cooperate in setting disbursement objectives for the money so raised. The public is more likely to contribute enthusiastically by purchasing space bonds, stocks, or lottery tickets if the initial funds raised were devoted exclusively or primarily to offworld economic, international, and scientific use, in preference to “star wars” type activities. For example, the initial target might be in the area of space transportation systems. That is, to build the space “highway” for the first few hundred kilometers up into Lower Earth Orbit, the most difficult part of interplanetary travel. Global participation in financing joint space ventures could provide advanced aerospace planes and reusable launch vehicles capable of operating in geosynchronous orbit or beyond …. Just as the Conestoga wagons and railroad opened up Western resources to the nation, so will these less expensive space vehicles bring resources from orbit back to benefit the home planet. NSS should be promoting space investments by private enterprise, beyond its support for NASA’s budget.
There already exist basic constituencies to enhance the success for alternative forms of space promotion and financing, such as among:
· 3,000,000 members of fifty space advocacy groups worldwide who have an estimated aggregate budget today of more than $30 million;
· beside the science fiction supporters, millions of space media fans from Star Trek television viewers and other numerous motion pictures like 2001 and Apollo 13, to the worldwide audience who witness the satellite televising of space feats or watching television productions, such as Disney’s Plymouth series about the first lunar community;
· the millions of people who make up the global space community – aerospace workers and contractors, astronomers and engineers, professors and students, et al.
Before his death, Gerard O’Neill, the visionary scientist for the high frontier, predicted that it will be private capital that will eventually finance space industrialization and colonization. The continued internationalization of space activities will attract such global investment
3. Reorganization of National Aeronautics and Space Agencies
The emergence of new work culture based on knowledge calls for the organizational renewal of varied space administrations within the spacefaring nations. Not only do they need to cooperate more effectively on planning joint ventures, but there may be a need now for creation of a Global Space Administration, Authority, or Agency. Such an entity could coordinate the combined efforts of both the public and private sectors in space development worldwide. Such an international institution might prevent overlapping missions, facilitate cost savings, and concentrate efforts on space macroprojects with the best prospects for ROI. With a modernized charter, this space clearinghouse and research center might obtain more creative financing and planning of space activities, particularly with reference to space technology transfer, as well as attracting more venture capital and licensing space trading corporations. In past centuries, great trading corporations were formed by rulers and/or private investors to facilitate exploration and commerce in unknown or foreign lands. The 21st century may replicate this approach by international space trading entities, comparable to existing multinational communication satellite corporations. NSS can begin by lobbying the U.S. Congress for renewal of
the American space goals and agency.
Citizen involvement in any of the above three strategies would contribute to humanity’s offworld progress. Michael Simon when president of International Space Enterprises, maintained that government and industry should do more real joint space venturing together. This engineer and entrepreneur made a case for space commercialisation and lunar development. Within a free enterprise government would encourage the private sector to greater responsibility and risk by:
· incentives for tax payers who invest in space enterprise;
· policies promoting innovative space entrepreneurialism;
· mechanisms for improving space market responsiveness;
· opportunities for achieving large-scale commercial benefits;
· initiatives which encourage synergy among companies, universities, and government entities engaged in working together to apply space research and transfer technology.
Perhaps Simon best stated the case for investment in space development in his volume, Keeping the Dream Alive:
The era in which we live presents humanity with three great challenges: to live in peace, to bring economic prosperity to all people, and to offer tomorrow’s generations an exciting future of physical and spiritual growth. During its relatively brief existence, the Space Program has emerged as a central force in our quest to meet all of these challenges. By breaching the bonds of our home planet, we have taken the tentative early steps to become an advanced interplanetary civilization. The impact of the embryonic space age on our lives, already great, will expand and intensify in the years to come, as our horizons become as limitless as the Universe itself.
The UN has already designated those who go aloft as humanity’s envoys of humanity. To create a spacefaring civilization, these words of Robinson and White highlight the global paradigm shift under way:
Our embryonic envoys have been essential intelligence agents for greater understanding of this survival vision—a total view. Through our efforts to propagate our envoys into the cosmos, through their own personal preparation and adjustments, and also through our remote biotechnological reception of their new transglobal outlook, our envoys have helped us begin to understand the systematic, dynamic, multidimensional, and continuous nature of the cosmos.
Exhibit 1 – Orbital Envoys of Humankind. Every spacefarer represents the human family offworld, whether worker, tourist, or settler. The hopes of our species in the future depends on their performance aloft. And they are expanded in space by our robotic creations.
Source: NASA Headquarters.
————————————————————————————————————————
If space visions are to be turned into meaningful achievement, NSS leadership and members now need to focus on winning the new White House Administration to our cause. We can obtain backing from President Barak Obama by showing him and his administration that utilizing space resources will not only renew the nation’s economy, but can eliminate poverty on this planet. To get their support for the return permanently to the Moon in 2020, lobby for the convoking of a White House Conference on Space Enterprise! Perhaps with the new NASA administrator, Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden or his deputy, Lori Garver, NSS could advocate that these above practical space strategies be implemented! NASA and NSS together can make the case how space development can reduce the national debt, while benefiting future generations
The exercise of authentic global leadership within all segments of both the public and private sectors could transform citizen goodwill into a space ethos that permeates our lives toward opening up the high frontier. When the majority of the world’s population perceive the economic and human advantage to be gained there, then energies will be directed into its development and settlement. As astrophysicist and author David Brin reminds us, science and its child, technology, are cooperativeendeavors requiring knowledge to be shared, especially when applied beyond Earth. The prime message is simply that space is the place where human emergence can truly occur
For travelers, it is not enough to see the horizon alone. We must make sure of what is beyond the horizon, and go there together. – -Kemal Ataturk
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
Freeman, M. Krafft Ehricke’s Extraterretrial Imperative. Burlington, Canada: Apogee Books, 2008.
Gangle, T. The Development of Outer Space – Sovereignity and Property Rights in International Space Law. New York, NY: Praeger, 2009.
Harris, P. R. Harris, P. R. Toward Human Emergence. Amherst, MA: Human Resource Development Press, 2009…..(www.hrdpress.com)….Space Enterprise – Living and Working Offworld in the 21st Century . New York, NY: Springer/Praxis, 2009 (www.springer.com)….Managing the Knowledge Culture (2005)). Amherst, MA: Human Resource Development Press, 2008 (www.hrdpress.com);
Robinson, G. S, and White, J. M. Envoys of Mankind. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986..
Schrunk, D., Sharpe, B., Cooper, B. and Thangavelu, M. The Moon: Resource, Future Development, and Settlement, Second Edition.. Chichester, UK: Praxis, 2008 (www.praxis-publishing.co.uk).
Seedhouse, E. Lunar Outpost – The Challengesif Establishing a Human Settlement on the Moon….
Martial Outpost – The Challenges of Establishing a Human Outpost on Mars. New York, NY: Springer/Praxis, 2009 (2 volumes).
Wibbeke, E. S. Global Business Leadership. Burlington, MA: Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, 2009 (www.books@elsvier.com/business; www.globalbusinessleadership.com)
· ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Phil Harris is a management/space psychologist, author/editor of some 49 published books, and a founding member of L5/NSS Visit his website, www.drphilipharris.com.
####
The Second Coming
Reviewed by
Dr. Bob Krone
“Kepler Space University take pride in sponsoring Rome Collier’s novel THE SECOND COMING. It is a beautifully constructed and written story by an experienced and creative journalist and Middle East expert. The protagonist is a journalist whose life is changed by association with a young man of Hebrew-Arab descent whose teachings in the West Bank make him a prophet and modern Messiah. The content and messages go above and beyond religion in a fascinating inclusion of history, philosophy, politics, psychology, values and visions that are shared by Kepler Space University visions for humanity. It’s messages that “Truth endures when reason will fail ,” “The Comos is the source of spirituality ,” and “A meaningful and purposeful life has value far above material desires” are artfully developed.
And we also take pride in announcing that the author, Rome Collier, is actually Kepler Space University’s Walter Putnam, Career International Journalist and Dean of the School of Global and Space Communication. ”
Bob Krone, Ph.D., Provost
_____________________________________________________________________
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
Putting Soul in the Machine
By
Howard Bloom
Review by
Bob Frantz
Howard Bloom has produced a classic to elevate our thinking from traditional perspectives on economics to offering us a multi-lens view that encompasses the entire genomic ecosystem. His worldview can be characterized as a unified field theory that operationalizes a concept that he describes as “repurposing” which explains the transformation point in life cycles that result in elevated levels of evolutionary advancement in economic development. The boundaries to his theory include on one extreme what might be described as “orgasmic cosmology” to the opposite extreme that might be described as the “social intelligence” of bacteria. In between these extremes he draws out a steady stream of indicators that support his theory.
The book is slow reading, but in a good way. Each chapter is like a small treasure chest of entertaining, but meaningful information. For the reader it is like defrosting those frozen pockets of interest that were meant for later deeper study, but were never returned to. Each of these pockets adds support to Howard Bloom’s “Pendulum of Repurposing”. They describe the nature of emotional and creative capitalism that ranges from monkeys learning to accept rocks as rewards resulting in developing a sense of “fairness”; from ancients learning to mix straw with mud to build structures thereby enhancing their quality of life; to the creativity of geniuses like Werner von Braun and Walt Disney who inspired others around them to higher levels of achievement. These types of creative activities were the impetus for recycling human race to higher levels of achievement and economic prosperity.
A parallel to Howard Bloom’s research can be seen in the studies of Joseph Schumpeter over 50 years ago. Schumpeter’s voluminous and seminal work into the subjects of capitalism, socialism and democracy examined the economic cycles theorized by Marx and Schumpeter referred to these cycles as the cause for “creative destruction”. Schumpeter predicted that the U.S. would certainly fall from capitalism into socialism. It would be the “intellectuals” at the time who would be the drivers of this downward transformation.
But Schumpeter was wrong and probably for the very reasons that Howard Bloom is right today. The cycles of “repurposing”, or what might be called “destructive technology”, create the competitive cycles that drive our economy to higher levels of productivity. It was entrepreneurial creativity, combined with globalization that drove us out of the depression 50 years ago and into the greatest economic era in U.S. history.
Today we are tested again just as 50 years ago where today’s self-selected “intelligencia” are taking advantage of a serious recession in an attempt to drive us into socialism in what they term as “redistribution of wealth”. Attention to Howard Bloom’s “Pendulum of Repurposing” should reenergize our spirits, giving us a “new sense of meaning” and “putting our soul” into re-igniting the engines of capitalism to avoid the black hole of socialism from which there may be no escape.
Robert L. Frantz, CEO
Kepler Space University
BEYOND EARTH
The Future of Humans in Space
Bob Krone Ph.D. Editor
Apogee Books, Ontario, Canada, 2006
Review by Hylan B Lyon Jr[1]
With the media and global attention understandably concentrated on earth’s problems today, major potential impacts for humanity through science and technology are under publicized. “Beyond Earth, The Future of Humans in Space” outlines the breakthrough benefits for humans on earth and for the health of our planet that will flow from the permanent settlement of humans in space. Forty-two expert authors who contributed to the thirty-six chapters of the book represent all aspects of the global space community. The book is the first to focus on the many complex variables which have formed space planning, research and exploration and which will function when humans live and work in earth orbit, on the Moon, on Mars or elsewhere in our Solar System.
The book is sponsored by the Aerospace Technology Working Group (www.ATWG.org) which has grown since it was founded by Dr. Kenneth J. Cox in 1989 to be a major space forum. All authors are members of ATWG and have devoted their lives to the development of space programs over the past fifty years and belief, as Dr. Cox states on the book cover: “This book expresses our shared commitment to achieving the wonderful possibilities that a focused space program may achieve for the benefit of all of humanity.” As stated by the Editors in the Preface, the book represents a systems approach to thinking about this next huge transition for humans. That large scope design precludes detailed scientific, technological or operational analysis. The subjects of all the short chapters will get attention in future publications.
The diverse backgrounds of authors as scientists, engineers, technologists, managers, program operators, university professors and authors provide a rich subject array from the meaning of space of past generations, or global leaders, children and current thinkers to the Human Factors involved when people permanently leave earth, to the governance, ethics and legal aspects desired, to the alternative strategies that may actually occur, to the infrastructures needed, to “The First Lunar City”, to the authors’ “Theory and Action for the Future of Humans in Space”, and, finally, to an Appendix containing research needed for this next human epic which compares with the exploration feats of Columbus and Lewis and Clark.
Beyond Earth covers a huge spectrum of benefits for earth and its humans as migration to space occurs. Those include medical and biological advances, solutions to current energy problems, businesses that will match any industries on earth today, tourism and entertainment, education, and global social benefits. The authors know that space offers solutions to global ecosystem deterioration, reducing the impacts of weather changes and natural disasters on earth, and planetary defenses from extra-terrestrial threats. They also are not utopian thinkers and fully understand the complexity and uncertainties involved in achieving required international political will to implement the programs that can achieve those benefits and ameliorate those threats.
The idea that the evolutionary pressures of life off of earth will take us in new directions is another of the delicious bites of exciting new issues that emerge in this book. Bacteria and microbiology are disciplines that will respond differently to space existence. They will also feed back to improve scientific understandings that can profoundly impact those of us who remain on earth. Education here on earth for this unfolding new era is described. Children’s descriptions of space with their beautiful unfettered spirits can tell us about ourselves as well as the future, examples are presented that carry this on into adult life with new potentials of understanding the spiritual dimensions of life. All of which lead not only to: cellular, body and social evolution, but takes us into new domains of personal awareness. Some of the prose is beautiful in its subtle but touching cries for each of us to reach into ourselves for a deeper awareness of who we are and what we should attempt to be as we evolve. In a sense the rebirth of the spirit and energy of the Apollo program emerges from the text.
The section on technologies highlights the strengths of NASA but in the context of going beyond just building rockets and missions for their own sake. Dimensions that used to be deferred to implementation phases now have to be factored into the initial structure of the program. Rather elegant management processes built upon what has come before are described but need to be adapted to include these other considerations. But as we read these latter chapters, the echoes of the initial sections roll across our minds as to what do we have to do to succeed?
The final section rebuilds the notion that the fundamental human drives to carry on with a new sustained presence are in fact existing within all of us, we as a culture have to stimulate new expressions of what we already know. The social history of managing mega projects for the solution of persistent problems here on earth is highlighted as a dimension that has to be recast, not only for the structure for improving the quality of life on earth but for a presence off of earth. The depth of space is a mirror to the mysteries of human destiny and long-term survival. Our current generation has the responsibility to face the hard realities of today and to effectively plan for the preservation and advancement of all peoples on earth and as they pioneer into space.
Taken as a whole the different chapters can be overwhelming but if digested one at a time you will absorb the human passion that is inherent in each. When completed you should understand why this is such an important juncture in human history.
[1] The Kepler Space University is pleased to publish this review of the book that is a foundation document for the University. Hylan B. Lyon Jr. is a co-author of the book. He was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Staff for space and aviation in the 1970s. Since then he has held many business and policy assignments on high technology and aerospace in both government and industry as well as being President and COO of Gamma Design, Inc. BEYOND EARTH: THE FUTURE OF HUMANS IN SPACE can be ordered at www.keplerspaceuniversity.com .
The review is incredibly excellent. You analyse in your round.I will go on to awareness your other terrific posts. I like this style of post particularly very much.
it’s good to see this information in your post, i was looking the same but there was not any proper resource, thanx now i have the link which i was looking for my research.
UK Dissertations Writing Service