It already has had effects on humans of all ages.
Adults, who are paying the taxes to support the space exploration program and reaping its practical values, are also thinking of themselves, their country, and their world in broader, more knowledgeable terms.
In a sense, children may be even more deeply involved.
There is a special group which may play a useful role in spreading the new values growing from the exploration of space, and this is the children who play at spaceman today. Whether or not they take this interest with them beyond childhood remains to be seen. However, the unique fact in the present situation is that never before have children rehearsed a role that really will not exist until they are adults. To be sure all of them will not fulfill this childhood role, but the fact that the reality lies ahead rather than in the past (as with cowboys and Indians) may stimulate them to retain a sensitivity for the various meanings man in space can have for our future.[86]
Put it another way—if it is true, as a modern Chinese philosopher has said, that the search for knowledge is a form of play, "then the spaceship, when it comes, will be the ultimate toy that may lead mankind from its cloistered nursery out into the playground of the stars."[87]
Figure 16.—Space vehicles of the future may look like this artist's drawing of an electrical propulsion craft. The nuclear reactor is located at the extreme left, followed by a neutron shield, heat exchanger, gamma-ray shield and propellant. The center tank houses turbogenerating equipment. Excessive heat is dissipated in the large radiator. At the extreme right are two crew cabins, landing vehicle and a ring-shaped accelerator.
MATURING OF THE RACE
The psychological and spiritual changes necessitated by this evolution may be at a cost far beyond dollars—because many of us will be hard put to negotiate them, especially if they come too rapidly.
Nevertheless, negotiating them must also be placed in the category of "practical" values—for in the long run it seems to be an essential part of the maturing of mankind.