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人类为何要探索太空
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1970年，赞比亚修女给NASA马歇尔太空飞行中心科学部门副主管斯图林格博士写了一封信，质疑他正在进行的载人火星任务的研究，不理解在地球上还有很多孩子忍受饥饿煎熬时，为何投入数十亿美元实施一项太空探索计划。斯图林格很快回了信，他的答案在今天看来仍有值得参考之处。
地出照片，由宇航员威廉·安德斯1968年从月球轨道拍摄
1970年，赞比亚修女玛丽·尤肯达给美国宇航局马歇尔太空飞行中心的科学部门副主管厄尔斯特·斯图林格博士写了一封信，质疑他正在进行的载人火星任务方面的研究。信中，尤肯达提出了一个她无法理解的疑问——在地球上还有很多孩子忍受饥饿煎熬之时，斯图林格为何建议投入数十亿美元实施这样一项太空探索计划？
斯图林格很快给尤肯达回信，解答她的疑问，随信还寄了一张“地出”照片。（这幅具有标志性的地球照由宇航员威廉·安德斯1968年从月球轨道拍摄。）后来，宇航局以“为何要探索太空？”为标题，全文刊发了这封回信。斯图林格的回信内容如下：
尊敬的玛丽·尤肯达修女：
你的来信收到了。我每天都会收到很多信，这一封对我的触动最大，因为它让我看到了一个富有探求精神的灵魂，一颗仁慈怜悯之心。我会尽我所能回答你提出的问题。首先，我要向你以及和你一样的勇敢修女们表达深深的敬意，因为你们将毕生精力献身于人类最高尚的事业——帮助所有需要帮助的人。
你在信中问我，为何我会在地球上仍有很多儿童面临饿死威胁之时建议投入数十亿美元实施火星探索计划？我想你一定不希望我给出这样一种回答——“哦，我并不知道很多孩子正因为饥饿走向死亡，从这一刻起，我会停止任何太空方面的研究，直到人类解决这个问题。”实际上，在我意识到火星之旅在技术上具有可行性前很久，我就已经知道很多孩子正在挨饿。然而，我以及我的很多同伴仍然坚信前往月球、火星以及其他行星是一种在当下值得进行的冒险，我甚至认为这项探索计划与其他很多潜在的援助计划相比能够在更大程度上帮助解决我们面临的各种严峻问题。援助计划每年都在讨论和争论，但所产生的效果却远远没有达到令人满意的程度。
在解释太空探索计划如何帮助我们解决地球上的各种问题之前，我想先给你讲一个真实的故事，这个故事也许有助于你了解我的观点。故事发生在大约400年前德国的一个小镇。这个小镇有一位非常仁慈的伯爵，把自己的大部分收入都用来救济镇上的穷苦百姓。这份仁慈令人非常感动，因为在中世纪，穷苦百姓实在是太多了并且经常出现全国性瘟疫。
有一天，伯爵遇到一个奇怪的男人。他的家里有一个工作台和一个小实验室。他白天辛勤劳作，每天晚上都会拿出几个小时在自己的实验室搞研究。他将一块块玻璃打磨成小镜片，而后将镜片安装到镜筒上，利用这种装置观察非常微小的物体。放大数倍的微小生灵尤其让伯爵感动不可思议，深深着迷，因为这是他此前从没有见过的。伯爵邀请这名男子带着他的实验设备搬到自己的城堡，成为他的一名“特殊员工”。从此，这个怪人将自己的全部精力都用来研制和改进他的光学仪器上。
镇上的人认为这个怪人是在研究一些没用的东西，伯爵在他身上浪费了太多钱，都感到很愤怒。他们抱怨说：“我们还在忍受瘟疫的折磨，而他却拿钱让这个男人搞一些没有用的爱好。”听到这样的抱怨，伯爵并没有因此动摇，仍坚持自己的做法。他说：“我会尽我所能帮助你们，但我仍会支持他的研究，因为我坚信他的研究终有一天会得到回报。”
事实证明，伯爵的话是对的。这个怪人最后研制出我们现在熟知的显微镜。在促进医学进步方面，其他任何发明都无法与显微镜相提并论。它的问世帮助人类消除世界上大部分地区的瘟疫以及其他很多种接触性传染病。如果没有显微镜，人类无法取得这些成就。在显微镜诞生过程中，伯爵投入的钱显然发挥了重要作用。在帮助减轻人类遭受的苦难方面，花钱支持研制显微镜所能做出的贡献显然远远超过单纯地救济遭受瘟疫侵袭的不幸者。
从很大程度上说，我们面临着类似的情况。美国总统每年的年度预算大约在2000亿美元左右，这笔预算最终花在医疗、教育、福利、城市建设、高速公路、交通运输、外国援助、国防、环境保护、科学研究、农业以及美国国内和国外的很多机构上。今年的预算有大约1.6%划拨给太空探索计划。太空探索计划包括阿波罗登月计划，很多涉及到天体物理学、空间天文学和空间生物学的小规模计划，行星探索计划以及与地球资源和太空工程学有关的计划。为了实施这些探索计划，每个年收入1万美元的美国纳税人每年需拿出30美元，余下的9970美元用于各种生活开支、休闲娱乐、储蓄、其他花销以及其他税赋。
你也许会问：“为什么不从每个美国纳税人缴纳的30‘太空美元’中拨出5美元、3美元或者1美元，援助忍受饥饿的儿童呢？”为了回答这个问题，我必须向你简要解释一下美国的国库如何运作。美国的情况与其他国家类似。美国政府由很多部门和机构构成，例如内政部、司法部、卫生教育与福利部、交通部、国防部、国家科学基金会、国家航空航天局（宇航局）。所有这些部门和机构都要根据自身承担的任务制定年度预算，每一笔预算都要受到国会委员会的严格监管，都要承受来自预算局和总统的压力。国会划拨后，各部门和机构的预算只能用于预算案上列出和政府批准的项目。
宇航局的预算只能用于与航空航天有关的探索计划。如果国会没有批准这笔预算，宇航局便无法从其他渠道获得所需的资金。他们不可能直接从纳税人那里筹集资金，唯一的方式就是其他预算提出追加请求并获得批准，宇航局方可获得这笔并非用于太空计划的资金。听完我的介绍，你应该已经意识到援助遭遇饥荒的儿童或者美国的其他对外援助项目都必须递交用于这些项目的预算请求，经国会批准后方可拿到资金。
你如果问我，我个人是否赞同政府采取援助措施，我的答案无疑是“赞同”。我完全不介意每年多交一些税，用于帮助忍受饥饿煎熬的孩子，不管他们身处何地。我相信我的所有朋友也是相同的态度。不过，我们不会为了实施这样的援助项目而停止火星探索计划。我甚至认为通过实施太空探索计划，我们能够为解决地球上的饥荒和贫困等严峻问题做出更大贡献，最终帮助找到这些问题的解决方案。
解决饥荒问题首先要着眼于两件事情，一个是粮食生产，一个是粮食分配。在世界上的一些地区，农业种植、畜牧业、海洋捕捞以及其他大规模食品生产活动都拥有很高的效率，但其他很多地区的效率都很低。如果在流域治理、肥料使用、天气预报、土壤肥力评估、作物种植规划、农田选择、种植方式、耕种时机选择、作物调查以及收割计划等方面采取更为有效的技术和举措，我们便可大幅提高粮食产量，进而帮助解决饥荒问题。
毫无疑问，改进粮食生产的最理想工具就是人造地球卫星。人造卫星在高空环绕地球飞行，能够在很短的时间内对面积巨大的陆地区域进行研究，观测大量能够揭示农作物、土壤、干旱、降雨、积雪情况的因素，而后将数据传给地面站。据估计，即使一颗最为简单的地球卫星也能为一项改进全球农业生产的计划做出不小贡献，让作物的年产量大幅提高，带来数十亿美元的收入增长。
与粮食生产相比，将粮食分发给贫困地区是一个完全不同的问题，这个问题不仅涉及到交通运输，同时也涉及到国际合作。在接受大国提供的大批粮食援助时，小国的领导人可能产生担忧情绪，担心大国在提供援助的同时也对外输出了他们的影响力。在我看来，在减少国与国之间的隔阂前，我们不可能实现有效的粮食援助计划。同时，我也不认为太空探索计划能够在一夜时间取得这一成就。不过，太空探索计划却是最有效的方式之一，帮助解决这个问题。
还记得当年死里逃生的“阿波罗13”号飞船吗？在“阿波罗13”号即将重返地球大气层时，苏联关闭了境内所有与阿波罗计划频带相同的无线电通讯，以防止出现任何可能的干扰，同时派遣船只前往太平洋和大西洋海域，必要的时候执行紧急救援行动。如果搭载宇航员的返回舱在一艘苏联船只附近溅落，苏联人一定会像对待本国宇航员一样，对他们提供帮助。如果苏联宇航员也遇到类似的紧急情况，美国人也会出手相助，这一点毋庸置疑。
通过卫星监测和评估提高粮食产量，通过改善国际关系改进粮食分配，这还只是太空探索计划如何对人类生活产生深远影响的两个例证罢了。除此之外还有两个具有代表性的例证——促进技术进步和提高一代人的科学素养。登月飞船需要拥有极高的精确性和可靠性，在工程学发展史上，登月计划在这两方面取得的成就都是空前的。为满足这些要求，科学家研发了相关系统，这些系统为我们研发新材料和新技术提供了一个前所未有的机会，允许我们发明出更出色的技术系统和制造工艺，延长科学仪器的寿命，发现此前未知的自然定律。
实施阿波罗登月计划过程中掌握的科学知识同样也可用于研发在地球上使用的技术。太空探索计划每年孕育出大约1000项技术革新。这些技术革新大幅提高了人类的生活质量，帮助我们研制出性能更卓越的厨房设备、农场设备、缝纫机、无线电设备、船舶、飞机、天气预报和风暴预警系统、通讯设备、医疗设备以及其他日常生活用品。你可能会问，我们为何首先为登月宇航员研发生命支持系统，而后才为心脏病患者研制远程体征监测设备？答案很简单。在解决技术难题过程中取得的重大进步往往不是通过一种直接的方式，而是首先设定一个具有高度挑战性的目标，通过激发强大的动力促进技术革新，点燃科学家的想象力，促使他们尽自己最大可能完成设定的目标。这种方式就像是一个催化剂，催化出连锁反应。
太空飞行无疑扮演着这样的角色。火星之旅虽然不能直接帮助解决饥荒问题，但这项探索计划孕育出的很多新技术和新方法所能给人类带来的益处将远远超过所付出的成本。如果我们希望改善人类的生活质量，我们就需要研发各种新技术，需要继续进行科学研究，了解和掌握我们尚未获得的知识。我们需要进一步研究物理学、化学、生物学和生理学，需要在医药研究的道路上继续前进，战胜各种威胁人类生存的挑战，例如饥荒、疾病、食品和水污染以及环境污染。
我们需要更多的年轻人将科学研究作为毕生的事业。我们需要为科学家提供各种帮助，让他们充分发挥自己的聪明才智，在研究过程中取得丰硕成果。我们必须设定富有挑战性的研究目标并为研究计划提供充分支持。太空探索计划涉及到一系列引人注目的研究，例如对卫星和行星进行研究，对高深的物理学和天文学以及生物学和医学进行研究。它就像是一个完美的催化剂，能够在极大程度上促进科技进步。通过实施太空探索计划，我们得以拥有一系列令人兴奋的机会，观察神秘莫测的自然现象，研发各种新技术和新材料。
在美国政府指导、监管和提供资金的所有活动中，太空探索无疑是最引人注目同时也最能引起讨论的活动，虽然它的预算只占美国总预算的1.6%，GDP的3‰。太空探索是孕育新技术和促进基础科学研究的催化剂，所能起到的作用是其他任何活动无法比拟的。从某种程度上说，太空探索对人类社会产生的深远影响甚至超过几千年来的战争。如果国与国之间不再进行研制轰炸机、火箭等武器的军备竞赛，而是在太空探索领域展开竞争，人类便可免遭很多苦难。这种竞争能够孕育出各种令人兴奋的成就，失败者也不必遭受痛苦命运，更不会制造仇恨和新的战争。
我们实施的太空探索计划虽然让我们远离地球，将目光投向月球、太阳、其他行星和恒星，但太空科学家最关注的仍旧是我们的地球，而不是这些天体。太空探索的终极目标是建设更完美的人类家园，探索过程中获得的所有科学知识以及所研发的所有新技术都将用于改善人类的生活质量。
随信寄出的照片是1968年圣诞节期间由“阿波罗8”号宇航员在环绕月球飞行时拍摄的，展示了我们的地球家园。在太空探索计划迄今为止取得的众多成就中，这幅照片可能最具有象征意义。它让我们意识到地球是怎样一颗美丽的星球。如果将无边无际的宇宙比作一个海洋，地球就是这个海洋中最美丽最宝贵的一座岛屿，是我们唯一的家园。在此之前，很多人并没有意识到地球的美丽与脆弱，更没有意识到肆意破坏生态平衡将给地球带来怎样的危害。在这幅照片第一次对外公布之后，号召人们警惕人类面临的各种严峻问题和挑战的呼声越来越高，例如污染、饥荒、贫困、城市生活、粮食生产、水资源管理和人口过度增长。拍摄这幅照片时，人类刚刚进步太空时代，也是第一次从太空观察我们的星球。公众对上述问题关注度的提高显然与太空探索计划有关，而非一种偶然。
太空探索为人类提供了一面审视自己的镜子，同时也孕育出一系列新技术。太空探索取得的成就增强了人类的信心和进取精神，让人类相信自己有能力解决面临的各种严峻考验和挑战。在我看来，人类通过太空探索取得的成就充分印证了“非洲圣人”阿尔贝特·施韦泽的那句名言——“我忧心忡忡地看待未来，但仍满怀美好的希望。”
献上我最真挚的祝福，永远祝福你和你的孩子们。
您非常真诚的
厄尔斯特·斯图林格
科学部门副主管
（原文引自：letters of note& 编译：shooter）
本文来源：网易探索
作者：顾纯
责任编辑：王晓易_NE0011
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分享至好友和朋友圈NASA有哪些最值得一提的太空探索？_网易科技
国外媒体盘点了数十年来NASA最重要的太空探索历程。
NASA有哪些最值得一提的太空探索？NASA：吃不起饭为什么还要探索宇宙(双语)_新浪教育_新浪网
NASA：吃不起饭为什么还要探索宇宙(双语)
NASA：吃不起饭为什么还要探索宇宙(双语)
　　In 1970, a Zambia-based nun named Sister Mary Jucunda wrote to&Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger,&then-associate director of science at NASA's&Marshall Space Flight Center,&in response to his&ongoing research into a piloted mission to Mars.&Specifically, she asked how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on such a project at a time when so many children were starving on Earth。
　　Stuhlinger soon sent the following letter of explanation to Sister Jucunda, along with a copy of&"Earthrise," the iconic photograph of Earth taken in 1968 by astronaut William Anders, from the Moon (also embedded in the transcript). His thoughtful reply was later published by NASA, and titled, "Why Explore Space?"
　　(Source: Roger Launius, via Gavin W Photo above: The surface of Mars, taken by Curiosity today, August 6th, 2012. Via NASA。)
　　May 6, 1970
　　Dear Sister Mary Jucunda:
　　Your letter was one of many which are reaching me every day, but it has touched me more deeply than all the others because it came so much from the depths of a searching mind and a compassionate heart. I will try to answer your question as best as I possibly can。
　　First, however, I would like to express my great admiration for you, and for all your many brave sisters, because you are dedicating your lives to the noblest cause of man: help for his fellowmen who are in need。
　　You asked in your letter how I could suggest the expenditures of billions of dollars for a voyage to Mars, at a time when many children on this Earth are starving to death. I know that you do not expect an answer such as "Oh, I did not know that there are children dying from hunger, but from now on I will desist from any kind of space research until mankind has solved that problem!" In fact, I have known of famined children long before I knew that a voyage to the planet Mars is technically feasible. However, I believe, like many of my friends, that travelling to the Moon and eventually to Mars and to other planets is a venture which we should undertake now, and I even believe that this project, in the long run, will contribute more to the solution of these grave problems we are facing here on Earth than many other potential projects of help which are debated and discussed year after year, and which are so extremely slow in yielding tangible results。
　　Before trying to describe in more detail how our space program is contributing to the solution of our Earthly problems, I would like to relate briefly a supposedly true story, which may help support the argument. About 400 years ago, there lived a count in a small town in Germany. He was one of the benign counts, and he gave a large part of his income to the poor in his town. This was much appreciated, because poverty was abundant during medieval times, and there were epidemics of the plague which ravaged the country frequently. One day, the count met a strange man. He had a workbench and little laboratory in his house, and he labored hard during the daytime so that he could afford a few hours every evening to work in his laboratory. He ground small lenses
he mounted the lenses in tubes, and he used these gadgets to look at very small objects. The count was particularly fascinated by the tiny creatures that could be observed with the strong magnification, and which he had never seen before. He invited the man to move with his laboratory to the castle, to become a member of the count's household, and to devote henceforth all his time to the development and perfection of his optical gadgets as a special employee of the count。
　　The townspeople, however, became angry when they realized that the count was wasting his money, as they thought, on a stunt without purpose. "We are suffering from this plague," they said, "while he is paying that man for a useless hobby!" But the count remained firm. "I give you as much as I can afford," he said, "but I will also support this man and his work, because I know that someday something will come out of it!"
　　Indeed, something very good came out of this work, and also out of similar work done by others at other places: the microscope. It is well known that the microscope has contributed more than any other invention to the progress of medicine, and that the elimination of the plague and many other contagious diseases from most parts of the world is largely a result of studies which the microscope made possible。
　　The count, by retaining some of his spending money for research and discovery, contributed far more to the relief of human suffering than he could have contributed by giving all he could possibly spare to his plague-ridden community。
　　The situation which we are facing today is similar in many respects. The President of the United States is spending about 200 billion dollars in his yearly budget. This money goes to health, education, welfare, urban renewal, highways, transportation, foreign aid, defense, conservation, science, agriculture and many installations inside and outside the country. About 1.6 percent of this national budget was allocated to space exploration this year. The space program includes Project Apollo, and many other smaller projects in space physics, space astronomy, space biology, planetary projects, Earth resources projects, and space engineering. To make this expenditure for the space program possible, the average American taxpayer with 10,000 dollars income per year is paying about 30 tax dollars for space. The rest of his income, 9,970 dollars, remains for his subsistence, his recreation, his savings, his other taxes, and all his other expenditures。
　　You will probably ask now: "Why don't you take 5 or 3 or 1 dollar out of the 30 space dollars which the average American taxpayer is paying, and send these dollars to the hungry children?" To answer this question, I have to explain briefly how the economy of this country works. The situation is very similar in other countries. The government consists of a number of departments (Interior, Justice, Health, Education and Welfare, Transportation, Defense, and others) and the bureaus (National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and others). All of them prepare their yearly budgets according to their assigned missions, and each of them must defend its budget against extremely severe screening by congressional committees, and against heavy pressure for economy from the Bureau of the Budget and the President. When the funds 　　The budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, naturally, can contain only items directly related to aeronautics and space. If this budget were not approved by Congress, the funds proposed for it would not be availabl they would simply not be levied from the taxpayer, unless one of the other budgets had obtained approval for a specific increase which would then absorb the funds not spent for space. You realize from this brief discourse that support for hungry children, or rather a support in addition to what the United States is already contributing to this very worthy cause in the form of foreign aid, can be obtained only if the appropriate department submits a budget line item for this purpose, and if this line item is then approved by Congress。
　　You may ask now whether I personally would be in favor of such a move by our government. My answer is an emphatic yes. Indeed, I would not mind at all if my annual taxes were increased by a number of dollars for the purpose of feeding hungry children, wherever they may live。
　　I know that all of my friends feel the same way. However, we could not bring such a program to life merely by desisting from making plans for voyages to Mars. On the contrary, I even believe that by working for the space program I can make some contribution to the relief and eventual solution of such grave problems as poverty and hunger on Earth. Basic to the hunger problem are two functions: the production of food and the distribution of food. Food production by agriculture, cattle ranching, ocean fishing and other large-scale operations is efficient in some parts of the world, but drastically deficient in many others. For example, large areas of land could be utilized far better if efficient methods of watershed control, fertilizer use, weather forecasting, fertility assessment, plantation programming, field selection, planting habits, timing of cultivation, crop survey and harvest planning were applied。
　　The best tool for the improvement of all these functions, undoubtedly, is the artificial Earth satellite. Circling the globe at a high altitude, it can screen wide areas of land it can observe and measure a large variety of factors indicating the status and condition of crops, soil, droughts, rainfall, snow cover, etc., and it can radio this information to ground stations for appropriate use. It has been estimated that even a modest system of Earth satellites equipped with Earth resources, sensors, working within a program for worldwide agricultural improvements, will increase the yearly crops by an equivalent of many billions of dollars。
　　The distribution of the food to the needy is a completely different problem. The question is not so much one of shipping volume, it is one of international cooperation. The ruler of a small nation may feel very uneasy about the prospect of having large quantities of food shipped into his country by a large nation, simply because he fears that along with the food there may also be an import of influence and foreign power. Efficient relief from hunger, I am afraid, will not come before the boundaries between nations have become less divisive than they are today. I do not believe that space flight will accomplish this miracle over night. However, the space program is certainly among the most promising and powerful agents working in this direction。
　　Let me only remind you of the recent near-tragedy of Apollo 13. When the time of the crucial reentry of the astronauts approached, the Soviet Union discontinued all Russian radio transmissions in the frequency bands used by the Apollo Project in order to avoid any possible interference, and Russian ships stationed themselves in the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans in case an emergency rescue would become necessary. Had the astronaut capsule touched down near a Russian ship, the Russians would undoubtedly have expended as much care and effort in their rescue as if Russian cosmonauts had returned from a space trip. If Russian space travelers should ever be in a similar emergency situation, Americans would do the same without any doubt。
　　Higher food production through survey and assessment from orbit, and better food distribution through improved international relations, are only two examples of how profoundly the space program will impact life on Earth. I would like to quote two other examples: stimulation of technological development, and generation of scientific knowledge。
　　The requirements for high precision and for extreme reliability which must be imposed upon the components of a moon-travelling spacecraft are entirely unprecedented in the history of engineering. The development of systems which meet these severe requirements has provided us a unique opportunity to find new material and methods, to invent better technical systems, to manufacturing procedures, to lengthen the lifetimes of instruments, and even to discover new laws of nature。
　　All this newly acquired technical knowledge is also available for application to Earth-bound technologies. Every year, about a thousand technical innovations generated in the space program find their ways into our Earthly technology where they lead to better kitchen appliances and farm equipment, better sewing machines and radios, better ships and airplanes, better weather forecasting and storm warning, better communications, better medical instruments, better utensils and tools for everyday life. Presumably, you will ask now why we must develop first a life support system for our moon-travelling astronauts, before we can build a remote-reading sensor system for heart patients. The answer is simple: significant progress in the solutions of technical problems is frequently made not by a direct approach, but by first setting a goal of high challenge which offers a strong motivation for innovative work, which fires the imagination and spurs men to expend their best efforts, and which acts as a catalyst by including chains of other reactions。
　　Spaceflight without any doubt is playing exactly this role. The voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the hungry. However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spin-offs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation。
　　Besides the need for new technologies, there is a continuing great need for new basic knowledge in the sciences if we wish to improve the conditions of human life on Earth. We need more knowledge in physics and chemistry, in biology and physiology, and very particularly in medicine to cope with all these problems which threaten man's life: hunger, disease, contamination of food and water, pollution of the environment。
　　We need more young men and women who choose science as a career and we need better support for those scientists who have the talent and the determination to engage in fruitful research work. Challenging research objectives must be available, and sufficient support for research projects must be provided. Again, the space program with its wonderful opportunities to engage in truly magnificent research studies of moons and planets, of physics and astronomy, of biology and medicine is an almost ideal catalyst which induces the reaction between the motivation for scientific work, opportunities to observe exciting phenomena of nature, and material support needed to carry out the research effort。
　　Among all the activities which are directed, controlled, and funded by the American government, the space program is certainly the most visible and probably the most debated activity, although it consumes only 1.6 percent of the total national budget, and 3 per mille (less than one-third of 1 percent) of the gross national product. As a stimulant and catalyst for the development of new technologies, and for research in the basic sciences, it is unparalleled by any other activity. In this respect, we may even say that the space program is taking over a function which for three or four thousand years has been the sad prerogative of wars。
　　How much human suffering can be avoided if nations, instead of competing with their bomb-dropping fleets of airplanes and rockets, compete with their moon-travelling space ships! This competition is full of promise for brilliant victories, but it leaves no room for the bitter fate of the vanquished, which breeds nothing but revenge and new wars。
　　Although our space program seems to lead us away from our Earth and out toward the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars, I believe that none of these celestial objects will find as much attention and study by space scientists as our Earth. It will become a better Earth, not only because of all the new technological and scientific knowledge which we will apply to the betterment of life, but also because we are developing a far deeper appreciation of our Earth, of life, and of man。
　　The photograph which I enclose with this letter shows a view of our Earth as seen from Apollo 8 when it orbited the moon at Christmas, 1968. Of all the many wonderful results of the space program so far, this picture may be the most important one. It opened our eyes to the fact that our Earth is a beautiful and most precious island in an unlimited void, and that there is no other place for us to live but the thin surface layer of our planet, bordered by the bleak nothingness of space. Never before did so many people recognize how limited our Earth really is, and how perilous it would be to tamper with its ecological balance. Ever since this picture was first published, voices have become louder and louder warning of the grave problems that confront man in our times: pollution, hunger, poverty, urban living, food production, water control, overpopulation. It is certainly not by accident that we begin to see the tremendous tasks waiting for us at a time when the young space age has provided us the first good look at our own planet。
　　Very fortunately though, the space age not only holds out a mirror in which we can see ourselves, it also provides us with the technologies, the challenge, the motivation, and even with the optimism to attack these tasks with confidence. What we learn in our space program, I believe, is fully supporting what Albert Schweitzer had in mind when he said: "I am looking at the future with concern, but with good hope."
　　My very best wishes will always be with you, and with your children。
　　Very sincerely yours,
　　Ernst Stuhlinger
　　Associate Director for Science
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