Lee Alvin DuBridge

“ Since the beginning of history, man has dreamed of flying to the stars—always fearing, however, that the dream was an impossible one. Actually, flying to the stars still is impossible for us; but journeying to the moon and the planets is not. ”

“ A missile of twice the thrust would not do that job any better. We don't have to carry larger loads any farther to achieve any foreseeable military mission. Clearly, the fact that the Russians are using a larger rocket to achieve their purposes is of no military consequence to us whatsoever. No military superiority resides in a thrust larger than necessary for our purposes: If "missile lag" means they have larger-thrust missiles than we need, then the missile lag is not of consequence at all, and we should quit worrying about it and quit using the term! ”

“ To live! Since, in a few years, excess population will be piling up at the rate of 30,000,000 per year (100,000 per day) it appears that we had better start preparing for quite a passenger business into space. If we could start colonizing the moon, it would take only 20 years (at 30,000,000 per year, plus their own babies) before the moon would be as densely populated as the earth. Then Mars? Well, Mars could hear the traffic for 50 years or so. It has only one-quarter the area of the earth, but it is all land. ”

“ However, even if we can be skeptical about the existence of a missile lag, we cannot deny the existence of a "space lag." Even if huge booster rockets do not necessarily make any more effective ICBM's, they do undeniably enable one to launch larger space vehicles and to send them farther into space. In this the Russians have acquired a substantial lead which we envy. ”

“ But we need not get hysterical about space-satellite weapons yet.
What about those who say it is of great importance for us to capture the moon as a military base? Here is the ultimate in the "high ground" the military man always seeks!
A long and very learned-looking article in The Air University Quarterly Review last summer set forth the arguments why the moon should be "sovereign U.S. territory"—our 51st state presumably. If it was our territory, we could tell the Russians to stay away, and it would then be a "tremendously hard" missile base. ”

“ A great opportunity for the extension of man's knowledge has come to our generation. I hope we can exploit it fully.
Neverthless, when the congressman or the average citizen asks about space projects and about the Russians being "ahead of us," he does not ask whether the U.S.S.R. has obtained more scientific information in space than the US. The answer would be "no." The U.S. is ahead in the scientific field. But the citizen knows that the heaviest Soviet space vehicle weighed 3,245 pounds, and the heaviest U.S. vehicle only 1700 pounds. Q.E.D.—the Russians are ahead of us. ”

“ While they are in orbit, they are extremely difficult to control—i.e., to change orbit. They tend to stay in the same orbit forever, and one must wait patiently for the earth to turn underneath them for a given target to come into position. Finally, the ejection of a weapon from a space satellite with the proper speed and direction and timing to hit a given target accurately is an enormously difficult task for which no present technology is anywhere near adequate or satisfactory. New and better technologies may someday come, and a development effort is certainly necessary. ”

“ Indeed, manmade packages have already flown to the moon and beyond. Venus and Mars are perfectly feasible targets for "near-miss" trajectories in the near future. It is now a fact that men have learned to launch sizable vehicles with sufficient speed and accuracy to attain It is such a magnificent human achievement that it is distressing to see how so many small-minded men have flown into a jealous rage over the fact that the Russians accomplished the feat a few weeks before the Americans did. ”

“ To explore the earth, the moon, Venus, Mars, and the great mysteries of interplanetary space presents problems which will challenge men's ingenuity and add to their lmowledge for. generations, for centuries, to come. If setting up a missile base on the moon appears to be a bit chimerical for the present, it is by no means farfetched to plan soon on sending scientific instruments there in order to make many, many measurements and observations. ”

“ It is just a game—a big and serious game, no doubt, but a contest for psychological prestige, I am not going to get hysterical if it takes us a couple of years to get the bigger rockets and bigger space vehicles. We all want to improve the U.S. psychological and political stature in the world. ”

“ One reason that the Russian successes have been so exasperating to Americans is that we know we could have been first if we had wanted to. The scientific knowledge and the technical know-how in the United States and Russia were essentially equivalent. ”

“ So it came to pass that a technical accident and a secret political decision combined to produce an enormous psychological victory—and brought the entire world to begin to think about the importance of space—and shocked the entire world into an awareness that Russia was no longer a nation populated solely by illiterate peasants. ”

“ Possibly other stars have planets, but the nearest of them would take a thousand years or more to get to, in order to find out. And how do we know that the 20th generation born on that flight will remember to come back and tell us about it? I suggest we try to solve our population problems on earth, and not depend on space. ”

“ The values to military forces of communication networks employing satellites are obvious—and should be vigorously developed. The attractiveness of using space satellites for military reconnaissance is also obvious, provided practical methods for achieving this difficult task can be developed. ”

“ But the exploration of space offers so many important opportunities and possibilities that it will pay us to pursue an energetic program of space research. It will take some time, at best. It will take quite a lot of money. ”

“ Pound for pound, shot for shot, we must catch up with and surpass the Russians. Our good old competitive spirit has been aroused. We must have the biggest cars, the tallest buildings, the largest cities, the fastest runners, the highest jumpers, and the biggest rockets. ”

“ But again I emphasize that further research and development is justified. New ideas and new inventions may change the picture. I just don't like to bet billions of dollars on discoveries not yet made. ”

“ Instrumented flights to Venus and Mars are also in sight. Someday, too, we will wish to make measurements beyond the capacity of automatic instruments, and then we may want to send trained scientists and engineers along to supplement the instruments and make them much more effective. ”

“ No one asks what was in the Russian vehicle, or whether the US. vehicle might have obtained more or better information. Actually, the Soviets have done some fine experiments, but the US. has achieved more knowledge. ”