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Union Calendar No. 928

86th Congress, 2d Session House Report No. 2091




THE PRACTICAL VALUES OF SPACE EXPLORATION


REPORT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND ASTRONAUTICS U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION

PURSUANT TO

H. Res. 133

[Serial I]

July 5, 1960.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed


UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

58231 deg. WASHINGTON: 1960





COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND ASTRONAUTICS


OVERTON BROOKS, Louisiana, _Chairman_

John W. McCormack, Massachusetts
George P. Miller, California
Olin E. Teague, Texas
Victor L. Anfuso, New York
B. F. Sisk, California
Erwin Mitchell, Georgia
James M. Quigley, Pennsylvania
Leonard G. Wolf, Iowa
Joseph E. Karth, Minnesota
Ken Hechler, West Virginia
Emilio Q. Daddario, Connecticut
Walter H. Moeller, Ohio
David S. King, Utah
J. Edward Roush, Indiana
Thomas G. Morris, New Mexico
Joseph W. Martin, JR. Massachusetts
James G. Fulton, Pennsylvania
Gordon L. McDonough, California
J. Edgar Chenoweth, Colorado
Frank C. Osmers, JR. New Jersey
William K. Van Pelt, Wisconsin
A. D. Baumhart, JR. Ohio
Perkins Bass, New Hampshire
R. Walter Riehlman, New York

CHARLES F. DUCANDER, _Executive Director and Chief Counsel_
DR. CHARLES S. SHELDON II, _Technical Director_
SPENCER M. BERESFORD, _Special Counsel_
PHILIP B. YEAGER, _Special Consultant_
JOHN A. CARSTARPHEN, Jr., _Chief Clerk_
FRANK R. HAMMILL, Jr., _Counsel_
RAYMOND WILCOVE, _Staff Consultant_
RICHARD P. HINES, _Staff Consultant_
Lt. Col. FRANCIS J. DILLON, Jr., _Staff Consultant_
Comdr. HOWARD J. SILBERSTEIN, _Staff Consultant_




LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL


HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND ASTRONAUTICS,
_Washington, D.C., July 1, 1960._

Hon. OVERTON BROOKS,
_Chairman, Committee on Science and Astronautics._

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I am forwarding herewith for your
consideration a staff study, "The Practical Values of Space
Exploration."

This study was undertaken pursuant to your request for information
covering the various utilities of the national space effort. The study
has been prepared by Philip B. Yeager and reviewed by other members of
the professional staff.

CHARLES F. DUCANDER,
_Executive Director and Chief Counsel._




LETTER OF SUBMITTAL


HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND ASTRONAUTICS,
_Washington, D.C., July 5, 1960._

Hon. SAM RAYBURN,
_Speaker of the House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C._

DEAR MR. SPEAKER: By direction of the Committee on Science and
Astronautics, I submit the following report on "The Practical Values of
Space Exploration" for the consideration of the 86th Congress.

OVERTON BROOKS, _Chairman_.




CONTENTS


Introduction 1

I. The unseen values 3
Some examples of the unexpected 3
The ultimate values 5
Steering a middle road 6
The time for space 7

II. National security values 9
The military uses 9
Our position in the international community 12
Space as a substitute for war 15

III. The economic values 17
U.S. expenditures on space 17
The spread of economic benefits 18
Creation of new industries 19
Research 19
New power sources 20
New water sources and uses 21
Noise and human engineering 22
High speed-light weight computers 22
Solid state physics 23
Economic alliances 24
Private enterprise in space 24
Jobs 27
Automation and disarmament 28

IV. Values for everyday living 31
Technological benefits 31
Food and agriculture 35
Communications 36
Weather prediction and modification 37
Health benefits 39
Education benefits 42
The demand 42

V. Long-range values 45
Trouble spots 45
Population 45
Water shortage 46
Soil erosion 46
Added leisure 47
Intensified nationalism 48
Limitations on space research 48
Fundamental knowledge about life 51
Psychological and spiritual values 52
Maturing of the race 53




+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| 86TH CONGRESS |
| _2d Session_ |
| |
| HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES |
| |
| REPORT |
| NO. 2091 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|THE PRACTICAL VALUES OF SPACE EXPLORATION |
| |
| * * * * * |
| |
|JULY 5, 1960.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on|
|the State of the Union and ordered to be printed |
| |
| * * * * * |
| |
|Mr. BROOKS of Louisiana, from the Committee on Science and |
|Astronautics, submitted the following |
| |
| REPORT |
| |
| [Pursuant to H. Res. 133] |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+




THE PRACTICAL VALUES OF SPACE EXPLORATION




INTRODUCTION


This report has been undertaken for a special reason. It is to explain
to the taxpayer just why so many of his dollars are going into the
American effort to explore space, and to indicate what he can expect in
return which is of value to him.

Such an explanation, even after 2 years of relatively high-geared
activity in the space exploration field, appears to be warranted. There
is still a segment of the U.S. population which has little, if any,
notion of the values that the space program has for the average citizen.
To these people the expenditure of billions of dollars on missiles,
rockets, satellites, Moon probes, and other space activities remains
something of a mystery--particularly when so many other worthy projects
throughout the land may be slowed or stalled for lack of funds.

If, therefore, the practical value of the American space program is
being questioned, it is a question which needs to be answered.

It is interesting to note that the problem is not unique to the United
States. In the Soviet Union, which counts itself as the world's prime
investigator of space, there is likewise an element of citizenry which
finds itself puzzled over the U.S.S.R.'s penchant for the interplanetary
reaches.

"What do sputniks give to a person like me?" a Russian workman
complained in a letter which _Pravda_ published on its front page. "So
much money is spent on sputniks it makes people gasp. If there were no
sputniks the Government could cut the cost of cloth for an overcoat in
half and put a few electric flatirons in the stores. Rockets, rockets,
rockets. Who needs them now?"[1]

It goes without saying that the workman was severely chastised by the
Soviet newspaper, but his point was made.

No matter where taxpayers live they want to know--and are entitled to
know--what good a program of space exploration is to them.

During the 1960's it is expected that the U.S. Government will spend
anywhere from $30 to $50 billion on space exploration for all purposes,
civilian and military. It is the intent of this report to delineate in
lay language, and in terms which will be meaningful to those who have
not followed the American space program closely, the reasons for this
great investment and the probable returns.

[Illustration: FIGURE 1.--A single shot of the 8-barreled
Saturn of the future will cost millions of dollars, maybe tens of
millions. What makes it worthwhile for the taxpayer?]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Associated Press dispatch, dateline Moscow, June 12, 1960.




I. The Unseen Values


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.


SOME EXAMPLES OF THE UNEXPECTED

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.


THE ULTIMATE VALUES

In any event, it is apparent that where research is concerned--and
especially space research with its broad scale of inquiry--we cannot
always see the value of scientific endeavor on the basis of its
beginning. We cannot always account for what we have purchased with each
research dollar.

The Government stated this proposition when it first undertook to put
the space program on a priority basis:

Scientific research has never been amenable to rigorous cost
accounting in advance. Nor, for that matter, has exploration of any
sort. But if we have learned one lesson, it is that research and
exploration have a remarkable way of paying off--quite apart from
the fact that they demonstrate that man is alive and insatiably
curious. And we all feel richer for knowing what explorers and
scientists have learned about the universe in which we live.[5]

In this statement there is political support for what the historian, the
anthropologist, the psychologist consider to be established fact--that
some innate force in the human being makes him _know_, whatever his
formal beliefs or whatever his unconscious philosophy, that he _must_
progress. Progress is the core of his destiny.

This is a concept which, in connection with space exploration, has been
recognized for many years. One of the earliest and most perceptive of
the space "buffs" stated it before the British Interplanetary Society in
1946 in these words: "* * * our civilization is no more than the sum of
all the dreams that earlier ages have brought to fulfillment. And so it
must always be, for if men cease to dream, if they turn their backs upon
the wonder of the universe, the story of our race will be coming to an
end".[6]

[Illustration: FIGURE 2.--In the years immediately ahead, the
orbiting observatory or the manned satellite will uncover crucial
information about the nature of the universe.]


STEERING A MIDDLE ROAD

In any endeavor which is as futuristic as space exploration it is not
difficult to become lost in the land of the starry-eyed prognosticators.
Conversely, it is also easy to find oneself lining up with the debunkers
and the champions of the status quo, for their arguments and views give
the impression of being hard-headed, sensible.

If one must err in either direction, however, it is probably safer,
where space is concerned, to err in the direction of the enthusiasts.
This is because (and subsequent parts of this report will show it) the
Nation cannot afford not to be in the vanguard of the space explorers.

Events today move with facility and lightning rapidity. Today, more than
ever, time is on the side of the expeditious. We can no longer take the
risk of giving much support to the scoffers--to that breed of
unimaginative souls who thought Robert Fulton was a fool for harnessing
a paddlewheel to a boiler, who thought Henry Ford was a fool for putting
an internal combustion engine on wheels, who thought Samuel Langley was
a fool for designing a contraption to fly through the air.

There are always those who will say it cannot be done. Even in this era
of sophisticated flight there have been those who said the sound barrier
would never be broken. It was. Others said later that space vehicles
would never get through the heat barrier. They have. Now, some say men
will never overcome the radiation barrier in space. But we can be sure
they will.

It is undoubtedly wise for the layman, in terms of the benefits he can
expect from the space program in the foreseeable future, to steer a
reasonable course between the two extremes. Yet one cannot help
remembering that the secret of taking practical energy from the atom, a
secret which the human race had been trying to learn for thousands of
years, was accomplished in less than a decade from the moment when men
first determined that it was possible to split an atom. It is difficult
to forget that even after World War II some of our most respected
scientists sold short the idea of developing long-range missiles.
Impractical, they said; visionary. But 6 years after the United States
went to work seriously on missiles, an operational ICBM with a
9,000-mile range was an accomplished fact.


THE TIME FOR SPACE

All of the glowing predictions being made on behalf of space exploration
will not be here tomorrow or the next day. Yet this seems less important
than that we recognize the significance of our moment of history.

We may think of that moment as a new age--the age of space and the
atom--to follow the historic ages of stone, bronze, and iron. We may
think of it in terms of theories, of succeeding from those of Copernicus
to those of Newton and thence to Freud and now Einstein. We may think of
our time as the time of exploiting the new fourth state of matter:
plasma, or the ion. Or we may think of it in terms of revolutions, as
passing from the industrial cycle of steam through the railroad-steel
cycle, through the electricity-automobile cycle, into the burgeoning
technological revolution of today.

However we think of it, it is a dawning period and one which--in its
scope and potential--promises to dwarf much of what has gone before.
Those who have given careful thought to the matter are convinced that
while some caution is in order, the new era is not one to be approached
with timidity, inhibited imagination or too much convention. Neither is
there any point in trying to hold off the tempo of this oncoming age or,
in any other way, to evade it.

Mark Twain once listened to the complaints of an old riverboat pilot who
was having trouble making the switch from sail to steam. The old pilot
wanted no part of the newfangled steam contraptions. "Maybe so," replied
Twain, "but when it's steamboat time, you steam."[7]

Today is space time and man is going to explore it.

[Illustration: FIGURE 3.--The versatile Atlas can be used
either for launching man into space or to carry a nuclear warhead as far
as 9,000 miles.]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Gavin, Lt. Gen. James M., U.S. Army (retired), speech to the
American Rocket Society, New York City, Nov. 19, 1958.

[3] Kramer, Max O., "The Dolphins' Secret," New Scientist, May 5, 1960,
pp. 1118-1120.

[4] Bikerman, Dr. Jacob J., reported in New Scientist, Mar. 3, 1960, p.
535.

[5] "Introduction to Outer Space," a statement by the President, the
White House, Mar. 26, 1958.

[6] Clarke, Arthur C., "The Challenge of the Spaceships," Harper &
Bros., New York, 1955, p. 15.

[7] Related by T. Keith Glennan, Administrator, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, in an address before the Worcester (Mass.)
Economic Club, Feb. 15, 1960.




II. NATIONAL SECURITY VALUES


There is no longer doubt that space exploration holds genuine
significance for the security and well-being of the United States as a
nation.

It does so in at least three ways. One results from the uses which our
Armed Forces can make of the knowledge gained from space exploration. A
second results from the influence and prestige which America can exert
within the world community because of her prowess in space exploration.
A third results from the possibility that space exploration, eventually,
may prove so immense and important a challenge that it will channel the
prime energies of powerful nations toward its own end and thus reduce
the current emphasis on developing means of destruction.

The first two values definitely exist. The third seems to be a
reasonable hope.


THE MILITARY USES

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