Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967 January 23
research on meteorites paralleled and confirmed early ARC research on
blunt-body reentry shapes, the iron magnesium sulfide mineral was
found in six stony meteorites estimated to be about 4.5 billion years
old. (ARC Release; Science, 1/27/67,451-3)
9 Technology Week marked beginning of its second decade of publishing by
asking some of the Nation’s leading educators, scientists, and engineers
to project their goals for technology. AEC Chairman Dr. Glenn T. Sea-
borg emphasized the need for man to first choose goals for technology:
”. . . we must give more thought to guiding the direction of our tech-
nological future.
“. . . if there are any ultimate goals for technology we will know what
they are only when we all agree on the goals of man.”
MSFC Director Dr. Wernher von Braun proposed an earth resources
management system employing space technology-principally, resource-
sensing satellites-to meet the needs of the world’s rapidly growing
population. Said Dr. von Braun: “. . . I am firmly convinced that one of
the great future contributions of our space program will be in helping
to manage more effectively the utilization of our world resources.”
In discussing long-delayed peaceful application of nuclear explo-
sions-Project PlowshareDr. Edward Teller, Associate Director of
Lawrence Radiation Lab., suggested that questions of safety, fear of the
unknown, limited nuclear test ban, and international politics were chief
obstacles to program. Until these obstacles were removed, Plowshare
would continue to lie dormant.
Prof. Isaac Asimov, Boston Univ. School of Medicine, foresaw that
mankind, now faced with the practical need for working under low-
gravity conditions, would have to develop “low-gravity engineering.”
Low-gravity engineering might also prove useful in future exploration
beneath the sea.
Dr. Joshua Lederberg, Professor of Genetics at Stanford Univ.
School of Medicine, proposed that man’s central technological goal was
the harmonization of his technical goals, a process Dr. Lederberg called
“eutechnics.” He went on to declare: “In the eutechnical society, the
penultimate crime may become to introduce any technological innova-
tion as a subsystem benefit without analyzing its impact on the whole
future of man. The ultimate one would be to deny man his humanity by
denying him the chance to think, to know himself.”
Dr. Charles S. Draper, head of MIT’S Aeronautics and Astronautics
Dept., emphasized the need to establish an adequate balance between
“directly beneficial” and “remedial” technologies. As air and water
pollution, land damage from mining, soil erosion, and other problems
become acute, man must give more thought to remedial actions for
disturbances inflicted on the environment. Dr. Draper suggested space
vehicle technology as “. . . an excellent model for the technology of
overall environmental control for the earth.”
Gen. Bernard A. Schriever (USAF, Ret.), former AFSC Commander,
believed that the big challenge of the next 25 yrs would be the effective
management of technology for the public good. Schriever suggested
that: “the systems management concept [developed in Nation’s military
and space programs] will be required to bring these technologies to
bearontheseproblems. . . .”
Clarence L. Johnson, Lockheed Aircraft Corp. Vice President, listed
10 aerospace projects which, he felt, should receive major attention
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