There are some who are convinced that the exploration of space is
rigidly limited and that the landing of men on extraterrestrial bodies
other than the Moon is quite improbable. They are sure that extensive
travel outside the solar system is impossible.
Admittedly, the problems of such travel are enormous. But are they
incapable of solution?
Twenty-six million miles to Venus, 49 million miles to Mars, 3,680
million miles from the Sun to Pluto at the outer edge of the solar
system. The nearest of the stars is 25 million, million miles away,
and travel to it at 10 miles per second would require 80,000 years.
Is the travel of man to the stars a futile dream? Each generation
of man builds on the shoulders of the past. The exploration of
space has begun; who now can set limits to its future
accomplishments?[78]
[Illustration: FIGURE 15.--Need for international cooperation
in the U.S. space program is illustrated by this map showing the areas
from which help must be procured for projects already planned or
underway.]
That is the thought of one of the Nation's most expert space scientists.
_"Who now can set limits * * * ?"_
It seems to mesh curiously well with one of the most interesting
phenomena of our day--the emergence of a breed of engineers,
technicians, teachers, and scientists who do not recognize limits and
who refuse to concede that something cannot be so because it fails to
fit conventional patterns or conform to the physical laws of the
universe as we now know them. Of this there is growing evidence.
For many years it has been an accepted "fact," for instance, that the
Moon is a dead world with no life upon it. The suggestion made by the
great 16th century mathematician, Johannes Kepler, that some life might
exist on the Moon was debunked into silence long since. Yet today a
fellow of the British Royal Astronomical Society writes that the first
men to arrive on the Moon may find not only plant life but possibly
animal life. "The fact that terrestrial organisms may be unable to
survive in the surroundings of another planet is by itself no more
significant than that fishes and other marine animals die when exposed
to the air. From their point of view air is uninhabitable because they
have failed to equip themselves with lungs."[79] And he adds that his
surmise "leaves out of account the possibilities of the Moon's
underground world, which are incalculable, for there water, the vital
gases, congenial temperatures, and increased pressures will all be
present. Only sunlight is absent."
Then there is Project Ozma, the search for life on other planets or in
other star systems, which began in April 1960 at Green Bank, W. Va. It
is being undertaken by the National Radio-Astronomy Observatory and
consists of carefully directed listening by radio-telescope for signs of
intelligent broadcasts originating outside Earth.
At Stanford University another astronomer is concentrating the efforts
of part of his laboratory on behalf of a similar idea. The chances are,
he believes, "that the superior races of other planets in other galaxies
have already developed a communications network among themselves, and
have entered a joint program to scan all the other solar systems looking
for signs of awakening civilization among the backward planets. Each of
the advanced communities might pick as its probe assignment a single
other solar system--and one such probe may well be circling our Sun
right now on a routine check for life."[80] Unexplained delayed echoes
of earthly radio transmissions received in the past, it is thought,
could be evidence of such a scheme.
Are goings-on such as these nonsense?
Here is the answer given by one hard-headed science writer:
Centuries may pass before there is any sign of intelligence outside
the Earth. But the advantages of communication with another
civilization that has survived our present dilemmas are far too
great to permit the experiment to be abandoned.[81]
The results of recent and more orthodox experiments have already done
much to shake the complacency of scientists in regard to their concepts
of space. Investigations have disclosed that, far from being a complete
vacuum, space is relatively full of matter and energy. Hydrogen gas,
radiation belts, cosmic particles, solar disturbances of unknown nature,
micrometeorites--and, from Pioneer V, proof of a 5-million ampere
electromagnetic ring centered about 40,000 miles away.[82] The director
of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass.,[83] has
said that more and more startling astrophysical information was gathered
during the first few weeks of the space age than had been accumulated in
the preceding century.
In brief, it is becoming the vogue in science to refuse to say
"impossible" to anything. On the contrary, the watchword for tomorrow is
shaping up as "take _nothing_ for granted."