Author Description

The first decade of the Space Age is behind us and now in the hands of the historians. It was a period of dynamic advance, bringing new appreciations of our solar environment and new capabilities to develop and exploit advancing knowledge and techniques. Since the space challenge of the next decade is likely to be just as demanding and rewarding as that of the last one, perhaps we may gain useful perspective by reflecting upon our experiences even as we contemplate tomorrow. Ten years ago our planning for the future required the piecing together and development of the organization and management as well as disciplinary and technical capability for space exploration. Today our planning for the future can be based upon well-established and versatile capabilities in science, engineering, and administration. Reliable space vehicles are available ranging from small sounding rockets to the Titan III and Saturn V class vehicles. The capability of man himself to function usefully in space has been, demonstrated in the successes of Mercury and Gemini and expands rapidly as Apollo proceeds. Ten years ago we could only assert from intuition and prophecy the value of space experimentation to science. Now we can point to the profound influence it has had on the geosciences, on astronomy, and is beginning to have in life sciences. Thanks to our planetary probes, we have known since 1965 that the planet Mars has craters like the Moon. Thanks to our lunar probes, a detailed lunar atlas can be prepared. Ten years ago we could only point forward hopefully to space applications in meteorology, communications, navigation, and geodesy. TTen years ago there was serious question as to whether there would be enough skilled manpower or public interest to carry out a sustained program of space exploration. Today great teams of competent scientists, engineers, and managers are engaged in developing our national space and aeronautical capability and applying its hard-earned technology to the m