Finally, an economic value of extreme importance could be the ultimate
role of the space program in modifying the threat to labor which is
inherent in automation and disarmament. Space 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,
space 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 substitution of
space 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.
[Illustration: 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.]