United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science and Astronautics.

“ In brief, space exploration is becoming almost an industry in itself, and there are those who believe it destined to become the largest industrial spur in the Nation before too many years have gone by.
One expert, an experienced hand not only in astronautics but in the business world as well, describes the outlook in this fashion: "A great industrial change is taking place in the United States. The aircraft industry, which long considered missiles as a small department, now finds itself becoming a part of the large missile and space [Pg 19] flight industry. It is an elemental evolution. ”

“ We can no longer take the risk of giving much support to the scoffers—to that breed of unimaginative souls who thought Robert Fulton was a fool for harnessing a paddlewheel to a boiler, who thought Henry Ford was a fool for putting an internal combustion engine on wheels, who thought Samuel Langley was a fool for designing a contraption to fly through the air. ”

“ We in the United States believe that we have the world's highest standard of living. Our current wealth, prosperity, consumer goods and gross national product are at a peak hitherto unreached by any country.
Nevertheless, economists who see the steady preponderant outflow of goods and capital from the United States and who study the rising rate of economic capability in other countries can find little room for complacence in the present status of things. They are also well aware of the Soviet Union's announced intent of beating the United States at its own game: economic expansion. ”

“ Everything learned from space exploration thus far indicates that the knowledge lying in wait for those who manage to observe the universe from outside Earth's atmosphere will be far grander than anything uncovered to date. ”

“ Inasmuch as other nations, those which generally have lagged behind the United States in technical know-how, are now rapidly bringing their technology up to date—this windfall from our space program is especially opportune. It is providing the incentive to American industry to remain in the world's technological van. And it is emphasizing that economic leadership is a dynamic thing, that U.S. mass-production techniques which have enabled the Nation to compete so well in foreign markets are no longer, of themselves, sufficient guarantee of superior economic position. ”

“ In any endeavor which is as futuristic as space exploration it is not difficult to become lost in the land of the starry-eyed prognosticators. Conversely, it is also easy to find oneself lining up with the debunkers and the champions of the status quo, for their arguments and views give the impression of being hard-headed, sensible. ”

“ Long before the arrival of that millennium, however, the knowledge and understanding awaiting us through the medium of space exploration is certain to have profound effects on the human race psychologically and spiritually.
It already has had effects on humans of all ages.
Adults, who are paying the taxes to support the space exploration program and reaping its practical values, are also thinking of themselves, their country, and their world in broader, more knowledgeable terms. ”

“ One of the most useful characteristics of the space program is that its needs "spread across the entire industrial spectrum—electronics, metals, fuels, ceramics, machinery, plastics, instruments, textiles, thermals, cryogenics, and a thousand other areas." [26] The benefits from space exploration thus have a way of filtering into almost every area of the American economy, either directly or indirectly. "Perhaps the greatest economic treasure is the advanced technology required for more and more difficult space missions. ”

“ In spite of the fact that ideas such as these are being sponsored by competent and responsible scientists, other scientists equally competent and responsible sometimes cry them down as impractical, impossible or even childish. One engineer, for instance, describes maneuverable manned space vehicles as having "no military value," bases on the Moon as having no military or communications use, and the idea of high velocity photon-power for space travel as "a fantasy strictly for immature science fiction." ”

“ Finally, an economic value of extreme importance could be the ultimate role of the space program in modifying the threat to labor which is inherent in automation and disarmament. Space exploration, opening up new and profitable vistas, could take up much of the slack thus imposed and do it at a higher and more intellectual job level.
Automation, as we know, is already in the process. In agriculture alone it has bitten deeply into the laboring force and yet produces greater crops than ever. ”

“ A final and far-reaching phase of the health side of space exploration deals with the basic nature of biology itself—how and under what conditions life grows. Up to now biological science has been largely "the rationalization of particular facts and we have had all too limited a basis for the construction and testing of meaningful axioms to support a theory of life." [65] Through research made possible by the space program it may be possible to alter this condition. ”

“ Life on Earth must then perish or move elsewhere. If we further assume that mankind will not want to die with his planet and if we acknowledge that other worlds may have been through this entire cycle in eons past—perhaps the notion is not so unreasonable after all.
Whatever the truth is on this score, space exploration will certainly be of "practical" value to our descendants when that dim, far-off day arrives. ”

“ No enterprise has so stirred human imagination as the reach of man toward the exploration of space. New worlds to explore. New distances to travel—3,680 million miles to Pluto, the outermost planet of our solar system, 8 years journey at 50,000 miles per hour when we attain such a capability. Innumerable problems ahead. New knowledge needed in almost every branch of science and technology from magneto fluid dynamics to cosmology, from materials to biology and psychology. ”

“ Yet today the products of fission applied to peaceful uses are many. The use of isotopes in industry, medicine, agriculture are well known. Food irradiation, nuclear power reactors, now reactors for shipboard use, are with us, and it is hardly the beginning. I frequently ask myself, of late, what 10 years from now will be the commercial, shall we call it, applications of our missile and rocket programs. [2]
There are innumerable examples of the way in which invention or discovery, or sometimes just simple human curiosity, result in useful payoff. ”

“ Nor, for that matter, has exploration of any sort. But if we have learned one lesson, it is that research and exploration have a remarkable way of paying off—quite apart from the fact that they demonstrate that man is alive and insatiably curious. ”

“ In other words, the fruition of life on the various planets of the millions of solar systems might be the product of a wandering group of astronautic Johnny Appleseeds who leave the grains of life behind them. "Space travel between galaxies has to be possible for this, but of course this needs to be only quite a rare event. In a time of about 3.3 billion years, the most advanced form of life occurring in a galaxy must be able to reach a neighboring one." ”

“ Nevertheless, if we can depend on the history of scientific adventure and progress, on its consistent tendencies of the past, then we can be reasonably sure that the greatest, finest benefits to come from our ventures into space are yet unseen. ”

“ Whichever phase of the problem is studied, it seems not unreasonable to conclude that space research will help find a solution. New ways to produce food, new materials for better shelter, new stimuli for education—all of these are coming from our space program. As for the matter of adequate living room, space research may result in ways to permit an easy and efficient scattering of the population without hurting its mobility. ”

“ Recently, however, there have been indications that businessmen feel they will be able to conduct certain business operations and services in space.
The space frontier will inevitably increase the scale of thinking and risk taking by business. When we are dealing with [Pg 25] space, we are dealing with a technology that requires a planetary scale to stage it; decades of time to develop it; and much bigger investments to get across the threshold of economic return than is customary in business today. Business must now think in international terms, and in terms of the next business generation. ”

“ Much of the electronics industry is devoted to missile and space needs. The communications, chemical, and metallurgical industries are increasingly involved. These industries are already among the largest employers in the United States, and they are the major employers of the Nation's technical manpower. Hence we are not speaking of a minor element in the national economy, but of its leading growth industries. [46]
This phase of the space program's value should not be eyed merely from the standpoint of scientists and the labor market. ”

“ It is quite apparent that even today a large fraction of the economy of the United States is dependent upon foreign trade. Some nations of the world, such as England or Japan, are almost entirely dependent upon foreign trade for their basic standard of living; however, current foreign trade practices are necessarily based on a somewhat leisurely pattern enforced by our current communications capacity. ”

“ Of all the problems contingent upon space flight it is doubtful if any are more perplexing than the biological ones. In fact, it now appears quite likely that the limiting factor on manned space exploration will be less the nature of physical laws or the shortcoming of space vehicle systems than the vulnerability of the human body. ”

“ Wholly apart from the intellectual compulsions that now drive man to move higher and higher into the high heavens, it seems clear that our country can be niggardly in this field only at the risk of being completely and forever outclassed by Russia—a gamble that could have the most fearful political, economic, and military consequences. ”

“ Certainly man's space adventure can help profoundly to make a finer creature of him, but only if his adventures on Earth can do so as well. Essentially what this means to a social psychologist is that we must somehow raise our level of education to the point where most men most of the time can appreciate and actively absorb the implications of knowledge and developments in all areas sufficiently to let them enrich their personal philosophies. ”

“ Whether or not we think of the missile-space business as being a self-contained industry, the requirements and exigencies of space exploration can be expected to result in the creation of new or greatly strengthened industrial branches, for example:
Research
This phase of the American economy is having a phenomenal growth. Not only have many established industries now placed research high on their organizational charts, but hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new businesses are springing up which are entirely devoted to research and development. ”

“ If, as some scientists believe, extensive space exploration by manned crews will depend on harnessing this great source of energy—both for booster purposes and for operating spacecraft in the distant parts of our interplanetary system—this fact alone may assure that the obstacles to practical nuclear energy are overcome faster and more completely than would otherwise be the case. ”

“ But when we look clear to the end of Earth's road (and assuming the astrophysicists are right in their theories about the evolution and ultimate death of our solar system) we know that Earth will one day become uninhabitable. ”

“ The use and growth of synthetics or new foods, and their effects on the soil, could prove invaluable as the worlds population climbs and the demand for food multiplies. Better understanding of weather processes, as provided through space exploration, will also be valuable in terms of agriculture. Long-range accurate weather prediction would be worth millions of dollars in proper crops planted and crop damage avoided.
Meanwhile, as in other technological areas, space research is providing specific new tools for the food and agriculture industry. ”

“ The so-called side effects of the space exploration program are showing a remarkable ability to produce innovations which, in turn, improve the quality of everyday work and everyday living throughout the United States. ”

“ A natural outgrowth of the military and prestige facets of space exploration is the question of whether this activity, in time, will replace the forces which have historically driven nations into armed conflict. ”

“ Yet today a fellow of the British Royal Astronomical Society writes that the first men to arrive on the Moon may find not only plant life but possibly animal life. "The fact that terrestrial organisms may be unable to survive in the surroundings of another planet is by itself no more significant than that fishes and other marine animals die when exposed to the air. ”

“ The slight knowledge which humans actually have of weather forces can be seen from the fact that at present we do not even know exactly how rain begins. [58] Learning to predict it and to modify it, through space application, might help slow down the soil erosion of arable land—that "geological inevitability * * * which man can only hasten or postpone." [59] It is noteworthy that the two leading nations in space research, the United States and the U.S.S.R., are among the most affected by soil erosion. ”

“ So if we can accept the wrenches which space exploration is apt to apply to our time, pocketbook, energy, and thinking, the values and rewards as outlined in this report should gather headway and grow continuously greater.
Space technology is probably the fastest moving, typically free-enterprise and democratic industry yet created. ”

“ Above all, leisure makes a challenge to the human spirit. Athens, in her Golden Age, displayed a genius for the creative use of leisure which can be seen as complementary, and indeed superior, to her genius for military and commercial ventures. ”

“ Medical researchers now are investigating many factors incident to the maintenance of space life—to make possible man's flight into the depths of space. Placing man in a wholly new environment requires knowledge far beyond our current grasp of human biology. ”

“ It is important to note, in connection with military matters, that pure rocket power, is not the only avenue to success in space use. The American Atlas missile, for example, which can carry a nuclear warhead and which operates on considerably less thrust than the powerful Soviet boosters thus far demonstrated, has nevertheless shown the capability of negotiating a 9,000-mile trek and landing in the target area. This is about 1,500 miles farther than any Soviet shots revealed to the public in the 21⁄2-year period following the first sputnik. ”