There probably is no reliable way to gage the number of Americans who
are employed today because of the national space 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 Space 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 institutions, 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 space-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 space program but
whose jobs have been created nonetheless by its stimulus.
The fact is that the military and peaceful needs of the space
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 space technologies. 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 has major
significance for the professions--for doctors, lawyers, architects,
teachers, and engineers. All of these will be vitally concerned with
space exploration in the future. The doctor with space 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 spaceports and data and tracking facilities; the teacher with the
booming demand for new types of space-engendered curricula.