by Pavel Podolyak

Created on: July 24, 2009

The 40th anniversary of the moon landing brings to attention the general macro level technological stagnation that occurred in the West since the 1970s. Lack of further human expansion in deep space corresponds neatly to the lack of new mega projects in United States as well as other economically powerful nations. American government didn't just give up on building lunar bases and ISS type docking platforms in the 70s and 80s when technology more than allowed for it. It also gave up on attempts at provision of mass affordable housing (through utilization of best conceptual design research and recommendations), further exploration of increasingly cheap and speedy transcontinental travel, new mega canal/highway/rail/tunnel/bridge systems as well as concentrated effort to make use of the earth's oceans for national and global betterment. The national GDP since the 1950s ( when United States emulated the autobahn with the Interstate highway Act of 1956) has risen exponentially whereas the will to engage in grand projects increasingly stagnated.

Media outlets like to say that continued space expansion became too expensive and superfluous since Soviet Union's abandonment of its lunar program. How would they explain abandonment of major efforts to make supersonic travel safe and widely used or to link up NATO space with high speed rail networks? Of course there are ready explanations from structural economic perspectives. Soviets passed their industrial economic peak in the 60s while the American civilizational peak (with similar subsequent decline) was in the early 1970s. That explanation would also explain the physical inability to construct impressively at home towards the end of the 20th century. Medium Western powers such as England, Germany, and France all saw stagnation in the 1970s after the heady days of postwar consumer driven booms.

This tangible explanation does not explain the loss of creative will among world's governments. The ancient desire towards national greatness (that China so readily demonstrates these days) has left the West along with ambitions of lunar settlements. Western oligarchs and adventurous playboys did not adequately follow their nationalist predecessors in quests for glory. It was enough for them to do money speculation in a personal playground that is the globalizing world.

Sure, they emulated the previous tycoons in terms of support of militarism and financially parasitic existence (from 1870s to 1950s) but not as much in terms of

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>