Space and innovative zeal We are abysmally late in setting new goals in space,

and we face a sharp national letdown once we reach the moon

As this is being written, Apollo 7 is about half way through its planned 11-day mission.

After suffering a tragic setback some 20 months ago when fire killed three astronauts at the cape, the U.S. space goal of man on the moon in this decade that President Kennedy set seven and a half years ago now appears clearly within reach. Perhaps within a short two months Apollo 8 may carry American astronauts to a moon orbit and back, and Apollo 10 or 11 (following a second earth orbit practice mission in Apollo 9) could be the lunar landing mission—just barely possibly before 1969 ends.

The nation hasn't committed the some $25 to $30 billion to the space program easily, as we see an urban life that too often in too many places crumbles about us, as we find too many enjoy­ing less than full opportunities for education and employment, as we watch others struggle to match our developed-nation benefits. Even once committed, we have hardly agreed univer­sally on objectives and priorities, contending over manned vs. unmanned missions, the moon vs. the planets as exploration objectives, scien­tific results vs. technical stunts aimed at a politi­cally divided world. Now that we have nearly reached our major objective of man on the moon, contention is flaring anew over what next, or indeed whether there should be anything next.

In some respects it is unfortunate that the space program should have been beset by our preoccu­pation with its being a "race" between the Sovi­ets and us for world attention and accolade.

Races distort priorities and deflect one from goals significant to one's special needs. Races, how­ever, admittedly force men to reach what might otherwise be unreachable.

In this "race" that is now nearing the final heat, the U.S. can't exactly claim a resounding series of firsts in the warmups. We may now have had more men in space for more time, we may have scientific background second to no one, and we may be well ahead in receiving practical day-to-day results with our weather and com­munications satellites, to name a few accomplish­ments. But we were second to put up a satel­lite, second to put a man in orbit, second to walk in space, and second to land a probe on a planet, again to name a few accomplishments.

With this history of seconds, we are now abys­mally late in setting some new, major national space goals for the post-Apollo period, and we risk a sharp national letdown once we reach the moon. This would indeed be unfortunate—for the space program itself and the investment we have in it, but more importantly for the innova­tive zeal of American society. In the words of the immortal Charlie Brown, when consoled by Linus after a particularly galling debacle to the effect that winning isn't everything, "Losing isn't anything."

J^fi^^u^ /&*.Μ*^ OCT. 21, 1968 C&EN 5

EDITORIAL