The United States has not embarked upon its formidable program of space
exploration in order to make or perpetuate a gigantic astronautic
boondoggle. There are good reasons, hard reasons for this program. But,
in essence, they all boil down to the fact that the program is expected
to produce a number of highly valuable payoffs. It not only is expected
to do so, it is doing so right now.
Many of the beneficial results can be identified.
Those already showing up are detailed in the sections of this report
which follow. They include the most urgent and precious of all
commodities--national security. Beyond that, they also include a
strengthened national economy, new jobs and job categories, better
living, fresh consumer goods, improved education, increased health,
stimulated business enterprise and a host of long-range values which may
ultimately make the immediate benefits pale into relative
insignificance.
Practical uses such as those just listed mean the taxpayer is more than
getting his money's worth from American space exploration--and getting a
sizable chunk of it today.
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.
These are the unpredictable values, the ones which none of us has yet
thought of.
Inevitably they lag behind the basic research discoveries needed to make
them possible, and often the discoveries are slow to be put to work
after they are made. Investors, even governments, are human, and before
they invest in something they normally want to know: What good is it?
We can be sure that many American taxpayers of the future will be asking
"what good is it?" in regard to various phases of the space program.
There was an occasion when the great Scottish physicist, James Clerk
Maxwell, was asked this question concerning one of his classic
discoveries in electromagnetism. Maxwell replied: "What good is a baby?"
Now, as then, it takes time for new knowledge to develop and become
useful after its conception and birth.