The Practical Values of Space Exploration Part 3

III. THE ECONOMIC VALUES

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.

Military historians are likewise aware that even strong economies, when they become static, do not guarantee safety. On the contrary, they seem likely to induce a dangerous national apathy.

This syndrome is familiar in history. Carthage suffered from it.

Carthage enjoyed enormous prosperity and was flourishing when she was destroyed by her Roman compet.i.tor. Much later, Rome had a gross national product without precedence. Her wealth and splendor were unsurpa.s.sed when the Vandals and Visigoths began their onslaughts.

Neither Rome's great engineering skills, its architectural grandeur, its great laws, nor, in the last a.n.a.lysis, its gross national product, could prevail against the barbarians. Their GNP was negligible; nevertheless they ransacked the mighty Roman Empire.

The gross national product is no insurance of survival. It is not a sign of military strength, and indeed, it may not even be sufficient for the economic battle.[25]

Thus from the point of view of economic stimulus and continued commercial dynamism, s.p.a.ce exploration should be--and is proving to be--a G.o.dsend.

U.S. EXPENDITURES ON s.p.a.cE

It is impossible to arrive at accurate figures which might help indicate the extent of this effort in dollars and cents. But we do know that the U.S. Government is presently putting about $3.5 billion annually into the research and development phases. How much more may be going into the purchase of completed s.p.a.ce hardware is difficult to say; certainly it is a higher figure still. The National Aeronautics and s.p.a.ce Administration, in presenting its 10-year plan to Congress recently, indicated that this agency alone expects to average between $1.5 and $2 billion a year during the next decade.

The amount of effort going into s.p.a.ce-related programs on the part of private industry, measured in dollars, again can only be roughly estimated. But it is a sizable figure and is known to be growing. It may amount to half the governmental research and development outlay.

These figures add up to a very important segment of the national economy, and the fact that they represent a highly active and progressive segment is particularly heartening to the economic experts of the Nation.

THE SPREAD OF ECONOMIC BENEFITS

One of the most useful characteristics of the s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce missions. This new technology is advancing at a meteoric rate. Its benefits are spreading throughout our whole industrial and economic system."[27]

A graphic example of the manner in which the technological and economic benefits from the s.p.a.ce program can grow may be seen from the development of the X-15. This rocket craft, designed to "fly" beyond the Earth's atmosphere at alt.i.tudes up to 100 miles, is the product of 400 different firms and contractors.

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 s.p.a.ce 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. ma.s.s-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.

While America's s.p.a.ce exploration program, on a formal basis, came into being as recently as October 1958, its impact on the national economy has probably been sharper than that of any single new program ever conceived. For there are now at least 5,000 companies or research organizations engaged in the missile-s.p.a.ce industry. And more than 3,200 different s.p.a.ce-related products have been required and are being produced to date.[28]

One can only speculate on the economic effect which the s.p.a.ce program is having on investments or on investors who have no other connection with it. It seems significant, however, that the stock market pages in recent months have come to devote a good deal of attention to "s.p.a.ce issues."

Financially speaking, s.p.a.ce has thus become a major category. That it has done so in such a short period would seem to have marked implications for the future.

In brief, s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce flight industry. It is an elemental evolution. An industrial change is upon us comparable to the advent of mercantilism."[29] He has predicted that within a decade or so the astronautics industry will be larger than the automotive industry of the entire world.

While such predictions may be overly optimistic, they can scarcely be dismissed as irresponsible in the light of what has already happened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 6.--Booster engines of tomorrow, such as this mockup of the 1,500,000 pound thrust single engine, will place broad requirements on men and materials.]

CREATION OF NEW INDUSTRIES

Whether or not we think of the missile-s.p.a.ce business as being a self-contained industry, the requirements and exigencies of s.p.a.ce 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. R. & D., as it is called, is their stock in trade, their only product. And s.p.a.ce exploration appears to have given them their greatest boost.

One recent study on the subject regards research as the fourth major industrial revolution to take place in American history, following the advents of steam mechanization, steel, electricity-and-internal combustion engines.

The fourth industrial revolution, ours, is unique in the number of people working on it, its complexity, and its power to push the economy at a rate previously impossible.

Today between 5,000 and 50,000 _technical entrepreneurs_ (top R. & D. engineers, leading scientists, and highly effective technical managers) are directly a.n.a.logous to an estimated 50 to 500 men in all of the first three periods. Thus about 100 times the effort in terms of qualitative (effective, creative, patent-producing) manpower is being spent on the fourth revolution as on the other three combined.

Total manpower, of course, is much more than that: there are probably 700,000 engineers and industrially oriented scientists in the United States today, as against 2,000 even as late as Edison's first high voltage light bulb. Whereas Edison worked with 20 to 100 scientists in his laboratory, and Fulton labored alone, there are 5,000 industrial laboratories today employing from 20 to 7,300 technical men each.[30]

_New power sources_

One of the greatest demands of s.p.a.cecraft of the future will be for new sources of power. While rocket propulsion power is part of this picture, the power needed to operate s.p.a.ce vehicles after launching may prove to be the larger and more important need. Progress has already been made in this direction by use of special kinds of batteries and solar cells which convert the sun's rays into electric current. But these will need supplementing or replacing eventually as greater power becomes necessary.

It would be rash to predict the outcome of this complicated field, but certain very promising methods can be listed.

One is the fuel cell, which converts fuel directly into electric power without the necessity for machinery or working parts. Much progress has been made on the fuel cell in recent months. In England a 40-cell unit has been used to drive a forklift truck and to do electric welding. It develops up to 5 kilowatts.[31] In the United States a 30-cell portable powerplant developing 200 watts has been delivered to the Army and Marine Corps,[32] while a 1,000-unit cell has been developed in the Midwest which provides 15 kilowatts and drives a tractor.[33]

Another method is plasma power, or power generated through the use of hot ionized gas. Such gas acts as a conductor of electricity and when employed as a "magnetohydrodynamics" generator it can be used for a variety of purposes. It has the advantage of being simple, rugged, and efficient. Some day it may also prove very economical. Already 10 munic.i.p.al areas along the Mason-Dixon line are preparing to experiment with electric power derived from this source.[34] It has been estimated that "as much as 1 million watts could be generated by shooting a stream of plasma at speeds three times that of sound through a magnetic field only 3 feet long and with the magnetic poles 6 inches apart."[35]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 7.--The possible power source for s.p.a.ce ships of the future, the ion jet, has significant counterpart uses for the commercial world.]

Another possible source is photoelectric power. While a number of very difficult problems block the practical generation of this kind of power, the astronautics research division of one American company has now succeeded in increasing the efficiency of photoelectric cells by a factor of more than 300.[36] So the possibilities in this area are looking up. As discussed in section II, photon power derived from the ejection of electromagnetic rays may someday prove a source for accelerating vehicles once they have escaped from Earth's gravity.

Another possibility, of course, is atomic energy about which much has been said and written. If, as some scientists believe, extensive s.p.a.ce exploration by manned crews will depend on harnessing this great source of energy--both for booster purposes and for operating s.p.a.cecraft in the distant parts of our interplanetary system--this fact alone may a.s.sure that the obstacles to practical nuclear energy are overcome faster and more completely than would otherwise be the case. It is interesting to note that the science of controlling nuclear fusion (as opposed to fission) has come so far in the past several years that 11 private power companies are pooling their resources to advance this state of the art.[37]

_New water sources and uses_

A look into the future indicates very strongly that water will become a major world problem, possibly by the beginning of the 1970's, which is likely to be another "dry" decade. Present water supplies, coupled with the increasing population and the many new uses for water, are barely adequate now. In another 10 years the situation could be critical.

Part of our national s.p.a.ce program includes studies on how to use and reuse water to the best advantage of the human in s.p.a.ce. A number of avenues are being followed, including vaporization of volatiles in biological wastes.[38]

From research of this kind it is more than possible that knowledge will evolve which will prove useful in the practical production of fresh water from other chemical compounds or mixtures, including seawater.

More than that, it could lead to new ways for extracting much needed materials from the sea. Seawater contains 40 basic elements, 19 in relatively copious amounts. These elements run from 18,980 parts parts per million of chlorine to 0,0000002 part per billion of radium. Yet, so far, we have learned to extract only bromine and magnesium in useful amounts.[39] Conversely, the study of how marine animals extract rare elements from the seawater, such as the extraction of copper compounds by the octopus, could provide astronautic researchers with important clues for keeping man alive in s.p.a.ce.

_Noise and human engineering_

This is a field in which research has been going on seriously for only a few years. Most of it has developed since World War II. Human engineering is involved primarily with the reaction of people to their immediate surroundings and how to arrange those surroundings in order to permit the most comfortable and efficient functioning within them.

The noise aspect of human engineering, as it may develop from the problems of astronauts operating in a silent world, could lead to a variety of innovations for improving the performance of workers or even the general att.i.tude of people living in urban areas. In today's world, where humans are subjected to so many different kinds, degrees, and sources of noise, psychologists consider the matter to be of no small importance.