The Practical Values of Space Exploration Part 7

It is a sort of situation in which tornadoes are to be found in this very bright cloudy area, especially this time of year in the Midwest.

A third vortex was observed, also April 1, in the Gulf of Alaska, 500 miles southeast of Kodiak Island. The vortex circulation is clearly evidenced by the clouds which form in a circular array, and the large clear area in the center of the storm.

No. 4 picture refers to a very big storm 1,500 miles in diameter located 300 miles west of Ireland on April 2. This is a very old storm which was whirling around, had no fronts a.s.sociated with it.

It has long since wound up around the center. There is a rather well-marked structure to the clouds that you can see. It is quite different from the pictures in the first two. These are storms mostly over the continental area or just off the coast. The storms over the oceans seem to show more of a banded structure. By that I mean circular bands of clouds, of width perhaps ranging from 20 miles to a few hundred miles, spiraling around the center in a counterclockwise manner.[60]

HEALTH BENEFITS

Of all the problems contingent upon s.p.a.ce flight it is doubtful if any are more perplexing than the biological ones. In fact, it now appears quite likely that the limiting factor on manned s.p.a.ce exploration will be less the nature of physical laws or the shortcoming of s.p.a.ce vehicle systems than the vulnerability of the human body.

In order to place humans in s.p.a.ce for any extended period, we must solve a host of highly complicated biological equations which demand intensive basic research. The other side of the coin, however, is that when scientific breakthroughs do occur in this area, they will probably be among the most beneficial to come from the s.p.a.ce program.

An idea of what is going on in the s.p.a.ce medicine field can be obtained from this summary:

Engineers already have equipped man with the vehicle for s.p.a.ce travel. Medical researchers now are investigating many factors incident to the maintenance of s.p.a.ce life--to make possible man's flight into the depths of s.p.a.ce. Placing man in a wholly new environment requires knowledge far beyond our current grasp of human biology.

Here are some of the problems under investigation: The determination of man's reactions; the necessity of operating in a completely closed system compatible with man's physiological requirements (oxygen and carbon dioxide content, food, barometric pressure, humidity and temperature control); explosive decompression; psychophysiological difficulties of spatial disorientation as a result of weightlessness; toxicology of metabolites and propellants; effects of cosmic, solar, and nuclear ionizing radiation and protective s.h.i.+elding and treatment; effects on man's circulatory system from accelerative and decelerative g.

forces; the establishment of a thermoneutral range for man to exist through preflight, flight, and reentry; regeneration of water and food.[61]

In addition, intensive efforts are being brought to bear on such problems as the effect on humans who are deprived of their sensory perceptions, or whose sensory systems are overloaded, or who are exposed to excessive boredom or anxiety or sense of unreality, or who must do their job under hypnosis or hypothermia (cooling of warm-blooded animals).

A recent s.p.a.ce medicine symposium heard this theory advanced by a prominent medical scholar:

Attractive, indeed, for the s.p.a.ce traveler would be the choice of hibernating during long periods when there was nothing he had to do. With the increase of speeds and the lowering of metabolism, consideration of flights running several hundred or even thousands of years cannot be offhandedly dismissed as mere fantasy. During prolonged flights of many months or years there will be very little to see and that of negligible interest. The most practical way of dealing with the problem might well be to have the pilot sleep 23 of the 24 hours.[62]

Lowering the body temperature would be one way of inducing the necessary deep sleep.

Another possibility of handling some of the biological problems of s.p.a.ce flight, suggested by another physician, would be for astronauts to discard the 24-hour Earth day and establish a longer rhythm for their lives.[63]

At any rate, and while we may not now see just how it will come about, knowledge gained from experiments such as these may result in important medical and psychological advances.

In the drug and technological area of medicine, concrete benefits have already resulted from the national s.p.a.ce program. These include, as already mentioned, a drug developed from a missile propellant to treat mental ills, a means of rapidly lowering blood temperature in operations, and a small efficient valve which could replace the valve in a human heart.

Particularly gratifying, from the standpoint of medical value is the Army's work toward an anti-radiation drug which could be taken before exposure to reduce the biological effects of radiation.[64] Such a drug, which is of special interest to astronauts who might be required to subject themselves to varying belts of radiation, might be of even greater use in the cause of civil defense.

A final and far-reaching phase of the health side of s.p.a.ce exploration deals with the basic nature of biology itself--how and under what conditions life grows. Up to now biological science has been largely "the rationalization of particular facts and we have had all too limited a basis for the construction and testing of meaningful axioms to support a theory of life."[65] Through research made possible by the s.p.a.ce program it may be possible to alter this condition. "The dynamics of celestial bodies, as can be observed from the Earth, is the richest inspiration for the generalization of our concepts of ma.s.s and energy throughout the universe. The spectra of the stars likewise testify to the universality of our concepts in chemistry. But biology has lacked tools of such extension, and life until now has meant only terrestrial life."[66]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 13.--Biological reactions uncovered in s.p.a.ce medicine studies, such as this centrifuge experiment, may lead to important health discoveries.]

The secrets which this research may divulge and their meaning for human health can only be imagined. But they certainly would not be minor.

EDUCATION BENEFITS

No enterprise has so stirred human imagination as the reach of man toward the exploration of s.p.a.ce. New worlds to explore. New distances to travel--3,680 million miles to Pluto, the outermost planet of our solar system, 8 years journey at 50,000 miles per hour when we attain such a capability. Innumerable problems ahead. New knowledge needed in almost every branch of science and technology from magneto fluid dynamics to cosmology, from materials to biology and psychology.[67]

"New knowledge needed" means better and stronger education is essential.

And not only in the physical sciences. In the social sciences and the arts as well.

Certainly man's s.p.a.ce adventure can help profoundly to make a finer creature of him, but only if his adventures on Earth can do so as well. Essentially what this means to a social psychologist is that we must somehow raise our level of education to the point where most men most of the time can appreciate and actively absorb the implications of knowledge and developments in all areas sufficiently to let them enrich their personal philosophies.

Obviously this kind of education is only in part a scientific one.[68]

Moreover, the technical and management aspects of the s.p.a.ce program involve collaboration with nonscientific persons such as businessmen, bankers, and public officials in a.s.sessing worthwhile objectives and in judging the technical and economic feasibility of projects designed to accomplish these objectives.[69] Consequently each type must educate the other in his own specialty if an effective, stepped-up s.p.a.ce program is to be achieved.

_The demand_

Apparently the demand for specific formal education in the science of astronautics is increasing faster than it is being supplied. Although many colleges and universities have been setting up courses dealing with astronautics, the state of the art does not seem to have crystallized to the extent that it permits fas.h.i.+oning a career in the field at the educational level. Of course, discontent is created. One publication has editorialized:

We have received a surprising number of letters from young people who actually want to know how and where they can get started in a career in astronautics. These, for the most part, are high school students--and, evidently, they couldn't get the information they wanted from their own school. * * * Isn't the age of s.p.a.ce yet important enough for all the high schools to sponsor interest in our s.p.a.ce programs and to point out the need for a constant flow of young brains?[70]

The answer undoubtedly is that such gra.s.sroots demand will bring about increased academic curricula in astronautics in direct proportion to its magnitude.

Meanwhile, the availability of work for persons with a background in s.p.a.ce-related subjects can be gaged to some extent by observing the variety of personnel requirements on major s.p.a.ce exploration projects.

A single American firm, for example, uses 49 different professional specialists in its work for the National Aeronautics and s.p.a.ce Administration and in its s.p.a.ce work for the Department of Defense.[71]

Multiplied by the thousands of companies which are doing similar work, the list gives an idea of the astronautic demand confronting the Nation's educational inst.i.tutions:

Acoustician Aerodynamicist Aeronautical engineer Agricultural engineer Astrodynamicist Astronomer Astrophysicist Biochemist Biophysicist Ceramics specialist Chemist Computer specialist Crystallographer Development engineer Doctor of medicine Electrical engineer Electronic engineer Experimental physicist Flight engineer Gyroscopics specialist Hydraulic engineer Information theory a.n.a.lyst Inorganic chemist Logical designer Magnetic device engineer Mathematician Mechanical applications engineer Mechanical engineer Mechanisms specialist Medical electronic engineer Metallurgical engineer Methods engineer Nuclear physicist Oceanographer Organic chemist Physical chemist Pneumatic engineer Process engineer Production engineer Project engineer Psychologist Reliability engineer Sociologist Solid state physicist Structural engineer System a.n.a.lyst Theoretical physicist Thermodynamicist Transducer engineer

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 14.--Exploration within the solar system means a wealth of new knowledge which could lead to learning the secrets of life.]

FOOTNOTES:

[50] 25 supra. See also address to the American Bankers a.s.sociation, Oct. 28, 1958.

[51] s.p.a.ce Business Daily, June 17, 1960.

[52] Feldman, George J., cited in a letter to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Apr. 29, 1960.

[53] From Michelson, Edward J., "How Missile-s.p.a.ce Spending Enriches the Peacetime Economy," Missiles and Rockets, Sept. 14, 1959, pp. 13-17.

[54] Tischer, R. G., "A Search for the s.p.a.ceman's Food," s.p.a.ce Journal, December 1959, p. 46.

[55] Kraar, Louis, Wall Street Journal, May 4, 1960.

[56] 7 supra.

[57] Release No. 38-60, Air Research and Development Command, May 2, 1960.

[58] Lear, John, "Where Does Rain Begin?" New Scientist, Mar. 24, 1960, p. 724.

[59] "Wind and Soil," New Scientist, May 26, 1960, p. 1327.

[60] Wexler, Dr. Harry. Press conference conducted by the National Aeronautics and s.p.a.ce Administration, Apr. 22, 1960.

[61] Lockheed, Missiles and s.p.a.ce Division, medical research, Sunnyvale, Calif.