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The Future of the United States Space Program the 1973 Harvey Cushing

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The Future of the United States Space Program the 1973 Harvey Cushing The future of the United States space program The 1973 Harvey Cushing oration WERNHER YON BRAUN, PH.D. Vice President, Engineering and Development, Fairchild Industries, Germantown, Maryland The distinguished author delivered his address without a prepared text. He has, at our invitation, recreated this review o[ certain highlights in his experience with the Apollo program, plus a glimpse into the future of space exploration. He emphasizes medical uses of the Skylab space station, a continuous survey o/ earth resources /rom satellites, and the establishment of direct broadcast television satellites as an aid to education in developing countries. --The Editor 'ASA has often been asked what the on a cruise through the Greek Islands. real reason was for the amazing During this cruise we also visited the famous N string of successes with our Apollo site of the Delphi Oracle to which since flights to the moon. I think the only honest antiquity generals and statesmen would answer I can give is that we tried to never make their pilgrimage to find out what the overlook anything. Let me give you an future held in store for them. The beautiful illustration of what I mean by that. park of Delphi is also the home of a famous A few weeks before the launch of Apollo Apollo temple. When we left the park, a 11 which carried Neil Armstrong's team to Greek newspaperman who must have been the lunar surface, I found myself in a trailing us buttonholed me and asked: "Dr. position comparable to that of a ship von Braun, what in the world are you doing captain whose boat is in drydock. We had here in Delphi 3 weeks before your rocket delivered our Saturn V rocket to our Launch will carry men to the moon?" I replied: "Of Operations Center at Cape Kennedy where course, I wanted to hear from the Oracle they stacked the various rocket stages and whether we will have a successful operation, spacecraft modules and checked out the and I also wanted to pay my respects to whole unit. There was nothing for me to do Apollo, the patron saint of our project." He but wait. Since it was obvious that the wrote a little story about this incident in his period after the launching would be pretty Greek newspaper which was promptly hectic regardless of whether the flight met picked up by Time magazine in their well- with success or failure, I decided that this known column "People and Events." A few was a golden opportunity to take a little days later a stranger came storming into the vacation, and so my family and I embarked office of Dr. Thomas Paine who was then J. Neurosurg. / Volume 39 / August, 1973 ]35 Wernher yon Braun my boss and the Administrator of NASA, To keep tabs on a program of this and asked: "Dr. Paine, do you approve of magnitude and degree of technological your Wernher von Braun placating ancient challenge was no simple matter. It was gods to ask for success in your moon necessary to ensure that the millions of program?" Dr. Paine replied with a deadpan components met the extraordinary specifica- face, "You don't need to worry about that; tions stipulated and arrived in serviceable we've just sent Frank Borman to the Pope condition in the right place at the right time so all bets are covered." and that they integrated correctly as systems From the very beginning, it was patently and subsystems in the abnormal operating obvious that a program of the magnitude of conditions of a space vehicle. It was Apollo and one with such far-reaching aims important to be certain that the astronauts would unleash a technical revolution simply were capable of dealing rapidly and compe- because it constituted a challenge to all tently with all the complicated instruments branches of science and technology involved under normal conditions and also in the in it to achieve pioneering innovations. This event of certain emergencies. It was essen- expected stimulus, this catalytic action, tial to make sure that the available funds proved to be 100% effective. I cannot think sufficed and that financial inroads were not of one single field of science or technology made at any point on account of unexpected in which the knowledge and conditions excess expenditure. New management meth- available in 1961 would have sufficed to ods, which until that time were unknown in achieve the objectives of the Apollo pro- even the best-managed giant companies and gram. No matter what the field, powerplant which made extensive use of electronic technology or aviation medicine, electronics computers, had to be introduced in order to or measurement, control engineering, as- handle the daily influx of technical and tronomy or mathematics, in every case we administrative data. were standing on the threshold of unex- The great human problems of our time, plored territory. Even in management tech- the provision of food and raw materials for niques, it was necessary to develop new the world's rapidly growing population, methods. The lasting value of the Apollo combined with our growing concern about program to humanity is, consequently, not ecological equilibrium and environmental merely the fact that man has finally landed pollution, are, by their very nature, global on the moon. Of equal importance is the problems. If we are to overcome them, we fact that, through the Apollo program, will need management methods that will far science and technology in all the fields exceed what was necessary for the Apollo involved have made a quantum jump in their program. progress, the spin-off from which will be of Thus, Apollo was not, as many people considerable value to the whole of mankind. seem to believe, a scatter-brain frittering- Up until the first successful moon landing away of public funds, but, in my firm with Apollo 11 in 1969, the Apollo program conviction, one of the most well-reasoned, had covered a period of around 8 years. wisest, and most far-sighted investments Including the last flight of Apollo 17 in that any country has ever made. The Apollo December, 1972, it consumed around program stimulated research and technolog- $22,000 million. At its height, the Apollo ical development in American industry as no program employed nearly 400,000 people, other program has done before. It is no around 30,000 of whom were employed by coincidence that the gross national product NASA which, under a central administra- of the United States doubled during the first tion in Washington, comprised 10 research 10 years of the "Space Age"! and development institutes scattered NASA's next important project after throughout the whole of the USA. Much Apollo 17 was the launching of the valuable work was also carried out in "Skylab" space station on May 14, 1973 universities. The majority of the personnel (Fig. 1 ), which a Saturn V rocket put into employed in the Apollo program were, orbit around the earth at an altitude of however, accounted for by around 20,000 around 280 miles. Skylab was carried aloft main and sub-contractors. unmanned, and only the first and second ]36 1. Neurosurg. / Volume 39 / August, 1973 .
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