The Challenge of the Spaceship (Astronautics and its Impact Upon Human Society)

摘要

Our survey is now finished. We have gone as far as possible, at this moment of time, in trying to assess the impact of astronautics upon human affairs. I am not unmindful of the fact that fifty years from now, instead of preparing for the conquest of the outer planets, our grandchildren may be dispossessed savages clinging to the fertile oases in a radio-active wilderness. Yet we must keep the problems of to-day in their true proportions. They are of vital - indeed, of supreme - importance, since they can destroy our civilisation and slay the future before its birth. But if we survive them, they will pass into history and the time will come when they will be as little remembered as the causes of the Punic Wars. The crossing of space - even the sense of its imminent achievement in the years before it comes -may do much to turn men's minds outward and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-valve that is needed to preserve it. I would like to emphasise this point, which may be of the utmost importance. By providing an outlet for man's exuberant and adolescent energies, astronautics may take a truly vital contribution to the problems of the present world. Space-flight does not even have to be achieved for this to happen. As soon as there is a general belief in its ultimate possibility, that belief will begin to colour men's psychological outlook. This is particularly true of the active - even aggressive - minds of those peoples, such as the Americans, British and Russian, for whom the problem is most acute. In many ways, the very dynamic qualities of astronautics are in tune with the restless, expansive mood of our age.