NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 427 



I do not say that our economic or military posture is as good as all that, I only 

 i?ay that the need for things, and the fear that others might talve away from us 

 what we have, are not the driving forces of our society that they once were. 



What drives us all still, as vigonmsly as it did wlien our ancestors came to 

 this continent, and during the long period we spent working our way across it 

 and reducing it to our use, are great dreams and vague expectations. 



This year we will spend upward of .$5 billion out of the Federal purse for 

 exploring space and learning how to move around and live in nearby space. 

 Excepting for the war-excited years of 1918, 1919. and 1920 this represents more 

 money than the Federal Government spent for all purposes in any year prior to 

 1934." Substantially speaking one hears no complaints about this from the tax- 

 payers. 



I don't really believe we feel that what we learn in space is of sufficient military 

 value to spend that much money on. The chance of economic spinofC from this 

 vent are commensurate with its cost is so thin that NASA spends much time 

 thinking up what these might possibly be. Its thoughts on this subject really 

 have little bearing on what Congress and the people think when providing the 

 funds. Of course we have the drive of beating the Russians, or at least catch- 

 ing up with them, and this not only adds zest to the enterprise but has quite 

 valuable public relations fallout in the diplomatic field. But I don't believe, 

 really, that many of us, many people in the outside world, or many people in 

 Russia, ever doubted that we could beat the Russians in this field if we wanted 

 to devote sufficient time and money to that purpose. 



As a matter of fact the only major and valid argument that arises against the 

 expenditures for the space program is the rather vague guilt feeling we have that 

 if we devoted the same time and money to fixing up the food and welfare situation 

 of that greater half of the world that still has to worry seriously about its daily 

 bread we could pretty well do it with not much more money and effort than we 

 ai-e spending on these shiny space toys. 



Yet I took time off the other morning from an overcrowded schedule to watch 

 the boys fire off Gemini 4 and I noticed on the television that President Johnson 

 did too. I expect that most other Americans within reach of a television set 

 did the same thing. 



The rationale for this interest is a little hard to lay down coldly on paper 

 because I think it is essentially emotional and irrational. It flows from the 

 great dreams and expectations that all of us, from the most clumsy clod to the 

 genius and from the poorest orphan to the richest financier, constantly harbor 

 secretly v»athin ourselves. 



We are all adventurers in spirit and White and McDivitt were our surrogates 

 out exploring a new environment, new areas, and new things where w^e had never 

 been before. We all knew that each of us could have done the job as well as they 

 did if we had had the time, but at least we had chipped in a few bucks apiece 

 to make it possible, so we had some piece of the action. We are all glad that we 

 did it, and if you have any more schemes to titillate our thirst for great dreams 

 and expectations, trot them out and let us look them over. 



Also you can't really tell. The crazy way things go these days the whole thing 

 might pay off in the long run. Columbus' trip across the ocean didn't look to 

 King Ferdinand to be a good risk at the time. Buying up the Louisiana Terri- 

 tory and sending off Lewis and Clark to look it over at the expense of the public 

 purse did not look particularly prudent to the Congress when .Jefferson did it. 

 Letting the Czar sucker us into paying good money for Alaska looked to be par- 

 ticularly stupid at the time. Putting millions into developing the ideas of an 

 immigrant, German scientist fiddler player who had some mathematical formulas 

 under his uncut hair that could be made into a superpower source and explosive 

 just wouldn't have held water had it been exposed to the public gaze during the 

 last war. Yet these, and a hundred other wild things you can think of. have 

 paid off in recent years, and that is why we are rich enough to afford the explora- 

 tion of the planetary system and the conque.st for use of nearby space. 



But it is the great dreams and expectations — the irrational — that drive us on 

 and make us willing to pay the bill. 



The great dream of conquering the sea and bending it to our use. and the 

 great expectations of the benefits that would certainly flow to all mankind, and 

 particularly to the United States, from this has been a sufiicient goal for me to 

 drive for these many years, and so it has been with most of my scientific col- 

 leagues. Simply the venture of the unknown, riddling out how natural things 

 w^ork, and seeing things and processes nobody before had seen or understood is 



