The Practical Values of Space Exploration Part 4

_High speed-light weight computers_

s.p.a.ce vehicles now need electronic computers for determining the moment of launch, for fixing orbits, for navigation, and for processing collected data. Computers will precede man into s.p.a.ce.

They will take over guidance and decision functions beyond limits of human physiology, psychology, versatility, and reaction time.[40]

The trend in this direction is marked and s.p.a.ce exploration is accelerating it. Because of weight and size limitations, and due to the genius of research, the giant electronic brain of today will soon disappear and be replaced with an apparatus only a small fraction of its present size. The implications for the business and professional world are great. And a not inconsiderable side effect, according to many modern technicians, will be the flood of brainpower released from time-consuming ch.o.r.es and thus made available for more basic, creative thought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 8.--The needs of tomorrow's s.p.a.cemen will lead to marked advances in human engineering and psychology.]

_Solid state physics_

Few areas of effort are advancing this extremely promising art faster than s.p.a.ce exploration, which places a premium on light weight and small size. The miniaturization of equipment being placed in U.S. satellites, for example, has been one of the contemporary wonders of the world of science.

A big part of this march toward tiny equipment is in the field of electronics, where the process is called microminiaturization, molecular electronics, micromodular engineering or a number of other terms. In essence it refers to the greatly reduced size of equipment through "integrated circuits," coupled functions, the building of complicated components into a single molecular design and so on.

The art has proceeded to the point where complete radios can be reduced to the size of a lump of sugar.

Clearly, this trend holds almost unlimited utility for the home, the factory, the marketplace, the highway, the hospital or just about any other arena one cares to name. So great is the promise that virtually every electronics company in the country is undertaking "to take the state of the art into fundamentally new areas" and there exploit its many possibilities.[41]

ECONOMIC ALLIANCES

It may be that our national s.p.a.ce exploration program will also result in stronger economic alliances, not only within our own national borders but on an international basis. Interesting speculation to this effect has been advanced by a prominent official of the National Aeronautics and s.p.a.ce Administration:

I think we may expect that the combined influence of jet aircraft and satellite communications systems will enable us to integrate the now somewhat distant States of Hawaii and Alaska with the rest of the States as thoroughly as the East and West are already integrated. Second, and in many ways a more intriguing possibility, is the prospect of developing a truly international economic organization. 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 j.a.pan, 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. Whether we will be able to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our activities in foreign trade through the use of the new communications facilities now foreseen will of course depend upon our political ability to work out viable arrangements for our mutual benefit with our oversea friends.

One of the lessons of history in the fields of communications is that an increase in capability has never gone unused. The capability of doing new things has always resulted in it being found profitable to use this capability in all fields, both commercial and governmental.[42]

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE IN s.p.a.cE

Up to now s.p.a.ce exploration has been more or less the exclusive domain of the Federal Government. It seems likely that this situation will not change much in the near future. But the question finally arises: Is the nature of s.p.a.ce such that the traditional American concept of private enterprise can have no place in it?

On this score there is debate. Recently, however, there have been indications that businessmen feel they will be able to conduct certain business operations and services in s.p.a.ce.

The s.p.a.ce frontier will inevitably increase the scale of thinking and risk taking by business. When we are dealing with s.p.a.ce, 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.

It must step up to the big risks with the same vision that enabled an earlier generation of builders to push railroad tracks out across the wilderness and lay the foundations of our modern economy.[43]

Incidentally, it should be pointed out that s.p.a.ce exploration is already encouraging the formation of business of all sizes. Myriads of small businesses have sprung up, many of them "suppliers of specialty equipment for the larger concerns that have responsibility for major components and systems."[44]

To what extent will private enterprise become involved? Here is one view:

As the years pa.s.s by, and s.p.a.ce apparatus becomes more reliable, and the work of obtaining scientific data from s.p.a.ce acquires a more routine character--certainly many of the necessary operating facilities could be put on a self-liquidating, private-industry basis.

Probably the first opportunities for private investment will come in the commercial use of satellites. Looking even further into the future of s.p.a.ce exploration, perhaps there would be economic justification for a privately owned launching service that would put objects into s.p.a.ce for the peaceful purposes of friendly governments, international agencies, industry, and the universities.

The base itself, from which the commercial launching service would operate, might be modeled after a port authority. Such a nonmilitary, international s.p.a.ce port could develop as a center for many private enterprises related to s.p.a.ce operations. These might include service and maintenance facilities; data-processing services; s.p.a.ce communication centers; laboratory facilities; standardized equipment for satellites and other s.p.a.ce vehicles; fuel supplies; medical services; biological services; and general supplies.

Moving away from the idea of a commercial s.p.a.ce port, must all future tracking stations, observatories, and data-processing stations be Government owned? How about experimental stations for the simulation of s.p.a.ce environments? How about laboratories and stations actually constructed in s.p.a.ce? Or will privately owned facilities one day offer these services on an international basis to governments, industries, universities, and international agencies?

Most likely the first businesses suitable for commercial operation, using s.p.a.ce technologies, will be worldwide communication by satellite, private weather forecasting, and high-speed Earth transport by rocket.[45]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 9.--The electric and electronic needs of the s.p.a.ce program are requiring more and more skilled labor.]

JOBS

There probably is no reliable way to gage the number of Americans who are employed today because of the national s.p.a.ce effort, nor to estimate accurately the number who are likely to be employed in the years ahead.

This much can be said, though. They already number in the tens of thousands, probably in the hundreds of thousands.

The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and s.p.a.ce Administration has reported that his agency presently employs 18,000 persons. And he adds "in spite of the size of this organization, we estimate that approximately 75 percent of our budget will be expended through contracts with industry, educational inst.i.tutions, and other nongovernmental groups."

Thus the number of persons privately employed who are working on NASA projects is, of itself, a high figure. The number employed in, by, or for the Department of Defense on missiles or s.p.a.ce-related projects is undoubtedly higher.

In addition to these must be added the men and women employed by private industry in a capacity not directly related to the s.p.a.ce program but whose jobs have been created nonetheless by its stimulus.

The fact is that the military and peaceful needs of the s.p.a.ce program are already employing a significant percentage of the industrial work force, and will make up an even larger proportion of total employment and production of the country as the years go by. The aircraft industry, for example, is broadening its scope to include missile and s.p.a.ce technologies. Much of the electronics industry is devoted to missile and s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce program's value should not be eyed merely from the standpoint of scientists and the labor market. It has major significance for the professions--for doctors, lawyers, architects, teachers, and engineers. All of these will be vitally concerned with s.p.a.ce exploration in the future. The doctor with s.p.a.ce medicine and its results; the lawyer with business relations and a vastly increased need for knowledge in international law; the architect with the construction of s.p.a.ceports and data and tracking facilities; the teacher with the booming demand for new types of s.p.a.ce-engendered curricula.

As for the engineer--

In this pyramid of scientific and engineering effort there will be found requirements for the services of almost every type of scientist and engineer to a greater or less degree. In the forefront, of course, are the aeros.p.a.ce and astronautical engineers but the development of the Saturn launching vehicle has also enlisted the cooperation of civil, mechanical, electrical, metallurgical, chemical, automotive, structural, radio, and electronics engineers. Much of their work relates to ground handling equipment, special automotive and barge equipment, checkout equipment, and all the other devices needed to support the design, construction, testing, launching, and data gathering.[47]

AUTOMATION AND DISARMAMENT

Finally, an economic value of extreme importance could be the ultimate role of the s.p.a.ce program in modifying the threat to labor which is inherent in automation and disarmament. s.p.a.ce 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.[48] It is gathering strength in many other fields.

Disarmament is a long way from being a reality. But all nations of the world are striving for it, or at least giving lipservice to its principles, so it may one day emerge as a reality. If this happens, s.p.a.ce exploration again may be a most important element in taking up the slack which a prominent reduction in defense activity could not help but bring about.

Indeed, there are some who already foresee a complete subst.i.tution of s.p.a.ce for defense, and who prognosticate that in the 1990's "the economy of nations is now based on the astronautics industry, instead of war."[49] Certainly, some new economic force would be crucial to nations deprived of the need for devising and manufacturing weapons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 10.--A host of new materials, skills, and engineering techniques are bound up in the construction of rocket engines such as this first stage booster.]

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Gavin, James M., address to the International Bankers a.s.sociation, Bal Harbour, Fla., Dec. 2, 1958.

[26] Mitch.e.l.l, Hon. Erwin, in the House of Representatives, June 2, 1960.

[27] Dryden, Dr. Hugh L., Deputy Administrator, NASA, Penrose lecture before the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Apr. 21, 1960.