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:

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]

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.