Sailing in New and Old Oceans

Abstract

I TAKE my text from something President Kennedy said when he heard that Col. Glenn had come home successfully after his wild ride. The President's words were, 'This is the new ocean, and we must sail on it.' Naturally, as a professional sailor, I am glad that the President chose to compare space to the ocean. I like to think that the words came naturally to him, because he, himself, is a famous and brave sailor. But for the moment, I would like to emphasize something else about the President's words. He didn't say why we must sail on this new ocean of space; he simply said, 'we must.' He didn't say that space exploration is intellectually stimulating, morally sound, or practically useful. By the very simplicity of his words, the President implied something quite profound: what men can do, they must do. Unbelievably, inconceivably, we are beginning to be able to leave the surface of the Earth, on which our ancestors have crawled for countless generations, and to reach for the stars. In using our newfound ability, we are simply being human; we are rising to the challenge that lies deep within us as human beings. At this early stage of the greatest of all human adventures, people who talk about the uses of space are like Queen Victoria. She asked Michael Faraday what was the use of his experiments in electricity and magnetism experiments which are the basis of our electric power industry and of nearly everything else in our electronic world. Faraday replied, 'Why Madam, what is the use of a new-born baby?' He didn't say it, but he might have added, 'It's a miracle, it's a wonder, it's human. That is its usefulness.' Our new baby, our space adventure, faces many difficulties. We are all worried about the impact on our economy of the enormous amounts of money and effort that must be spent. We are worried because other things that need to be done may be delayed by the space effort. We are worried about what will happen to our universities, our science and our humanities, as our new baby grows to giant size, but it must grow because we are committed to. its growth. We are committed not because it will help us in our competition with the Russians or because of the economic benefits it will bring but simply because we are human beings, and the challenge of space is the greatest challenge human beings have ever had. When we Americans talk about the use of something, we usually have the word 'practical' in our minds. I am always puzzled by this word 'practical'. What does it mean? I would like to think it means more than faster transportation, greater comfort, more food, or increased longevity. Anything is useful, and thus practical, if it fills the needs of human beings. One of the greatest needs of human beings is the need for understanding. You will remember that the unknown poet who wrote the Book of Job imagined that God appeared to Job out of the whirlwind and said: 'Gird up now thy loins like a man. Declare if thou hast understanding.' The voice out of the whirlwind speaks to each one of us. We are that one among God's creatures who has the possibility of understanding and the need to understand. To me, this is the greatest practical use of space. By venturing out from our own planet, we will gain immeasurably, and in ways which we cannot now even imagine, in our understanding of the world and the universe. Let me illustrate my thesis by an example. From the beginning of human life on Earth, men have imagined that there might somewhere be other beings like themselves. Every child and every man who has looked upward to the heavens has wondered if men or angels lived on the stars. There are three questions about the possibility of life on other planets. The first and most easily answered one is: are there other planets on which life is possible at all? We are reasonably sure that within our own s lar system primitive forms of life can exist on Mars, and the same may well be true of Venus. But the conditions on these other planets of our own corner of the universe are probably too difficult for intelligent, highly developed life such as we know it on the Earth. The second question therefore, is: are there other stars among the myriads of stars in the Milky Way around which planets revolve with conditions somewhat like those on our own Earth conditions that have permitted the development of thinking, conscious forms of life with whom we would be able to communicate? :: Delivered May 10, 1962, at the Second National Conference on Peaceful Uses of Space, Seattle, Wash.