A graphic illustration of "unseen" benefits in regard to atomic energy
has been expressed by an experienced researcher in this way:
I remember a conversation I had with one of our nuclear scientists
when I was a member of the Weapons Systems Evaluations Group almost
10 years ago. We were talking about the possible peaceful
applications of fission. We really could think of little that
could be done with it other than making fissionable material into a
form of destructive power. There had been some discussion about
harnessing the power of fission, but this seemed to us to be quite
remote. It seemed difficult to conceive of the atomic bomb as
anything but sheer power used for destructive purposes. 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. And frequently no one suspects the direction the payoff finally
takes. The point, of course, is that _any_ knowledge eventually pays
dividends. The things we learn from our national space program will
produce benefits in ways entirely unrelated to missiles or
interplanetary travel. (See secs. III and IV.) The reverse is also true;
knowledge gained in areas quite remote from outer space can have genuine
value for the advance of space exploration.
Investigation into the skin of a fish provides a good case in point.
A German inventor who migrated to California after World War II had long
been interested in ways to reduce the drag of friction produced by air
or water on the surface of objects passing through them. One day, while
watching a group of porpoises cavort past a speeding ship with the
greatest of ease, it occurred to him that the skin of these animals, if
closely studied, might shed light on ways of cutting surface friction.
It was many years before the inventor was able to enlist the aid of
aquarium managers in securing porpoise skins for study. In 1955,
however, he obtained the necessary skins and found that dolphins, in
fact, owe much of their great speed to a unique skin which markedly
reduces the effect of turbulence against it. From this knowledge has
come the recent development of a diaphragm-damping fluid surface which
has real potential not only for underwater high-speed bodies, such as
submarines, torpedoes and underwater missiles, but for any vehicle where
fast-moving gases or fluids may cause drag.[3]
The implications of this knowledge for satellites near Earth or for
reentering spacecraft are obvious.
Sometimes a reverse twist in reasoning by a speculative mind will result
in enormous practical utility.
In Cambridge, Mass., a sanitary engineer teaching at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology began to wonder about the principles of
adhesion--why things stick to each other. Do they only stick together
because some sticky substance is holding them, or are there other
reasons? "If a person is sick," he asked himself, "is it because a cause
of sickness is present or because a cause of health is absent? We now
know that in infectious diseases the first alternative is true; the
patient is ill because he harbors pathogenic germs. The opposite case
prevails in deficiency diseases, where necessary vitamins are absent
from food and illness is brought about by this absence. To which of the
classes does adhesion belong? When we cannot produce a dependable bond,
are we dealing with the lack of some adhesive force or with existence of
an obstacle to sticking?"
Operating on the theory that adhesion might result not only from the
presence of a sticky agent but from the removal of all impediments to
sticking, this scientist has now managed to produce strong adhesion
between the least sticky of substances--polyethylene plastics. He has
done it by studying the molecular structure of polyethylenes and
removing all impurities which normally find their way into the
manufacture of such material. The next step: "We hope to prepare
adhesive joints in which a noble gas acts as an adhesive. Noble gases
are the least active substances known to chemistry; if they can adhere,
it is clear that no specific forces are needed for adhesiveness."[4]
No great imagination is required to perceive the meaning which this new
knowledge, if proved out, will have for our everyday lives--to say
nothing of its usefulness in the making of astronautic equipment.