AUTOMATION AND DISARMAMENT
Finally, an economic value of extreme importance could be the ultimate role of the space program in modifying the threat to labor which is inherent in automation and disarmament. Space exploration, opening up new and profitable vistas, could take up much of the slack thus imposed and do it at a higher and more intellectual job level.
Automation, as we know, is already in the process. In agriculture alone it has bitten deeply into the laboring force and yet produces greater crops than ever.[48] It is gathering strength in many other fields.
Disarmament is a long way from being a reality. But all nations of the world are striving for it, or at least giving lipservice to its principles, so it may one day emerge as a reality. If this happens, space exploration again may be a most important element in taking up the slack which a prominent reduction in defense activity could not help but bring about.
Indeed, there are some who already foresee a complete substitution of space for defense, and who prognosticate that in the 1990's "the economy of nations is now based on the astronautics industry, instead of war."[49] Certainly, some new economic force would be crucial to nations deprived of the need for devising and manufacturing weapons.
Figure 10.—A host of new materials, skills, and engineering techniques are bound up in the construction of rocket engines such as this first stage booster.
IV. Values for Everyday Living
The so-called side effects of the space exploration program are showing a remarkable ability to produce innovations which, in turn, improve the quality of everyday work and everyday living throughout the United States.
In setting forth specific ways and means in which the space program is producing practical uses, it must be kept in mind that no attempt is made here to separate uses resulting from the civil phases of the program from those developed by the military phases. Inasmuch as the two are closely intertwined, it would seem impractical to do so. And, in instances where the same or similar research is being conducted by a single contractor on behalf of both phases, it is usually impossible to do so.