cury, ground-based computers were only required to determine, quickly and accurately, booster cutoff conditions. In Apollo, however, computers are used throughout the mission in real time, to calculate the trajectory to the moon and back, to compare three separate solutions for the lunar descent, to record and analyze thousands of bits of telemetered spacecraft information, to compare these to predicted values to detect trouble, and at the same time to monitor the well-being of the crew.

For Mercury, the computer program contained 40,000 "computer words"; for Apollo, a 1,500,000-word program was needed.

Challenging the best talents of our Nation in this way-to produce both hardware and the programing that makes it useful-has helped the U.S. computer industry to attain its present dominant world position. The industry engineers who developed our Mission Control Center computer system at Houston for Apollo tell us that without the forcing functions of NASA's requirements, they would not have been able to exploit fully the inherent capabilities of their own machines to meet other requirements. Virtually every on-line, directaccess commercial computer system in the world today is American, and reflects the space guidance and checkout requirements of some years ago.

The U.S. computer industry does about $8 billion worth of business a year. It pays the highest average wages of any U.S. industry, is one of the most rapidly growing, and contributes a large positive international balance of trade. You might be interested in reviewing a few statistics here. In 1960, the U.S. exported $48 million worth of computers; by 1965, this had risen to $223 million, and it reached $728 million in 1969. U.S. computer exports have increased over 1,400 percent in the first decade of the space age, and prospects for this decade are equally bright if progress continues.

This impressive record is built on excellence of performance through continuing technological superiority. The economic health and growth of this vital new segment of U.S. industry is creating significant national capital, now and for years to come. NASA is proud of the degree to which our stimulus and support of technological advance has encouraged and assisted the computer industry's growth.

Not only did we get full value in the direct results that the Government paid for, but the entire Nation is benefiting from the economic and technological contributions of this industry. America's investment in the computer industry in the 1960's may well prove to be the most beneficial technoeconomic decision for the second half of the 20th century.

AVIATION INDUSTRY

Continuing technological progress is necessary to maintain leadership in every field; history proves there can be no resting on the oars. Although the Wright brothers invented the airplane, there was little subsequent support in America. As a result, during World War I American pilots flew only French and British planes; there was no ready U.S. aviation industry.

In the Second World War, the Me 262 jet fighter was operational while America was still testing prototypes. The British flew the first

jet transport; the first supersonic transports will be the AngloFrench Concorde and the Russian Tu 144. International competition in aviation is intensifying. More than national commercial interest is at stake in a strong aerospace industry; it is today a matter of national survival.

U.S. leadership in aerospace technology continues to mean much to the Nation in many ways, including national defense. For example, the helicopter is revolutionizing Army tactics and logistics, vastly increasing the mobility and power of our ground forces. Similarly, today's Navy and Air Force show little resemblance to their counterparts of 20 years ago; missile developments have completely changed our strategic concepts. Aerospace leadership can be expected to remain a prime requisite for future national security.

What U.S. aerospace leadership means to the Nation in civil fields is evident at airports around the world, where American aircraft are seen bearing insignia of almost every national airline.

All American aircraft flying today, civil and military, reflect technical contributions by the NACA. Continuing NASA research in aerodynamics and engines, materials and structures guidance and controls, coupled with flight tests and wind tunnel experience, are supporting the aerospace industry, the airlines and their passengers. Aviation is no longer an alternative form of transportation; it has become the backbone of national and international passenger traffic. In 1964, there were 83 million U.S. airline passengers; in 1969, there were 168 million-a doubling of passenger traffic in only 5 years. In 1964, we had 432 commercial jet transports; in 1969, there were 1,781a fourfold growth. At the same time very high safety standards have been achieved.

AEROSPACE INDUSTRY

The importance of aerospace to the United States can be put into another perspective: It is now America's largest manufacturing industry, employing 1.3 million people with a $14 billion annual payroll. This industry does an annual business of $27 billion-and last year had a $28 billion backlog. U.S. exports of aircraft and parts climbed from $1.1 billion in 1964 to $2.9 billion in 1969. The aerospace industry is thus one of our great producers of national wealth. America would not have this vital industrial capacity, competence, and output today had we not made continuing technological investments in the past. This will hold true even more so in the economic equations of the future.

THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

An excellent example of NASA work on a problem of concern to people everywhere is our program to reduce jet engine noise. Present engines, derived from military predecessors, are major offenders in urban areas today. Working with Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas, NASA had recently demonstrated an economically feasible approach to alleviating the worst part of this noise. An acoustic muffling treatment for 707 or DC-8 engines has been demonstrated that can reduce by 85 percent the area around an airport subject to severe noise100 effective perceived noise decibels.

The longer term solution—an engine designed from the inside out to be quiet—is also underway in NASA's aeronautics program. What is significant here is not just the solution itself—as desirable as that is— but the way in which it is being achieved. The people who are doing this work, who understand the theory, technology and problems, are members of the unique NASA Government-industry-university team, working together under NASA on this difficult task. So once a concept like acoustic nacelle treatment is proven, Federal airport regulations can be made to require it, and U.S. industry will have already proven its ability to respond practically to the regulation. Not a "spinoff," this is the kind of direct practical benefit the average citizen is getting from our program.

Many other examples can be cited from the past, like NASA's "area rule" which resulted in the "coke bottle" shape of all modern high performance aircraft, or the variable sweep wing, or titanium alloys, or ground simulators, or inertial navigation systems, or grooved runways. The main point here, I believe, is not that research per se is valuable; that is seldom disputed today. It is that the effective way in which research and technical development is organized and managed by NASA is acting as a powerful multiplier on its value, getting practical R. & D. results into the minds and hands of people who can use it because it meets their requirements and objectives.

Technology transfer is very effective within corporations. The Boeing Co. that met the stiff requirements of the Saturn S-IC rocket stage is now manufacturing the 747 jumbo jet; the inertial guidance system on the 747 is made by AC-Electronics Division of General Motors, which made the guidance system for Apollo; the McDonnell-Douglas Co., which developed the Mercury spacecraft and the Saturn S-ÏVB stage, is now building the DC-9 and DC-10.

Many people who have worked on NASA programs have now taken their knowledge and skills into other aerospace fields. The aerospace industry has, as an inherent part of its operations, always stressed personal mobility and interdisciplinary learning. New programs are organized as old ones phase out, bringing the experience and advances of the past directly to bear on the future. This flexibility is a powerful force for progress, diffusing new technology both within companies and throughout the national economy.

This diffusion is not, of course, limited to aerospace activities. Let me cite one example from the automotive industry. In order to meet new Clean Air Act criteria, the Chrysler Corp. reworked their automobile ignition systems, designing distributors to operate within much closer limits. To assist in this they called on their own personnel who had developed the automated checkout and launch sequence equipment for the Saturn launch vehicle. At Chrysler's Indianapolis plant today, every distributor is dynamically tested for final acceptance throughout its entire range on computer controlled equipment derived directly from Apollo program checkout equipment. The system works so well that they are using the same computer system to check out windshield wiper motors, and are now applying the same approach to small sack and parcel sorting equipment for the U.S. Post Office. This is the complex network process of technological transfer and growth. The inputs are varied, including many from space challenges

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and discoveries; the outputs are national productivity, wealth, and power. To the man in the street, this means more and better jobs at higher wages, and better and cheaper products.

This is a difficult process to understand and explain to the public, however. Clearer and more direct benefits are apparent to everyone from NASA's science programs and applications programs, which I will now discuss briefly.

3. SCIENCE PROGRAM

NASA's investments in space science have provided returns in two classes: scientific returns in themselves, and resulting practical benefits. The new perspectives afforded by our newly acquired ability to study directly the moon and other planets is illuminating the study of our own earth.

Our ability to probe into the origin of the earth and the solar system has been limited by the fact that the earth's crust appears to be about 3.5 billion years old, or about 1 billion years younger than what is thought to be the true age of the solar system. Moreover, the record of earth's history is constantly being erased by erosion, folding, cracking, and other movements in the earth's crust. Many pieces to the puzzle of how the earth and planets were formed will necessarily be missing if we are constrained to examine the earth alone.

The moon in particular has long been thought by scientists to be a potential Rosetta stone for interpreting the history of the solar system. Since the surface of the moon has been spared most of the processes of change that occur on earth, the moon's surface has apparently preserved the record of its long history since the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

The discovery from Apollo 11 and 12 that much of the lunar soil is indeed 4.5 billion years old was a most profound result, and our continuing investigation of the moon promises to be very productive in understanding not only the moon but also our own planet.

SPACE ASTRONOMY

Space astronomy has come into being at an exciting time when astronomers are wrestling with some of the most puzzling problems ever turned up in man's investigation of the universe. Huge radio galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and numerous X-ray sources are still unexplained. Some of these objects emit energies at unbelievably prodigious rates, suggesting that we may be witnessing new, powerful modes of energy production, different from those we have known in the past.

Recalling that our present-day knowledge of nuclear energy stemmed from inquiries into how the sun produced its radiant energy, we can speculate that today's space astronomy may eventually also yield results of tremendous practical importance. Satellites provide the means for making observations in the radio, infrared, ultraviolet, Xray, and Gamma-ray wavelengths that cannot penetrate the earth's atmosphere to the ground, so space astronomy is giving astronomers powerful new tools for investigating these challenging questions.

SPACE PHOTOGRAPHY

Space photography enables us to view the entire earth in a new perspective not obtainable from aircraft or balloons, permitting us to study the earth and its atmosphere in detail, to search for new resources, to monitor water resources, agricultural activity, and forest stands, to explore the oceans, and to assist in large-scale civil engineering.

SPACE GEODESY

Space geodesy has taught us the true shape of our planet, where it flattens, how much it bulges. With these results we are better able to map the earth and navigate. Space observations enable us to calculate accurately the earth's gravitational field, knowledge of which is important to the operation of space vehicles and satellites for exploration, science, and applications.

We know now that the atmosphere of the earth has an upper boundary, that it does not extend indefinitely out into space, as previously believed. We know also that the earth's magnetic field in space is not like that of a simple bar magnet extending indefinitely outward, but is instead very complicated.

The discovery of the Van Allen Belt of trapped radiation, of the magnetosphere within which the Van Allen Belt lies, and the solar wind, together have revolutionized all earlier concepts of space around the earth. This new picture of the earth's upper atmosphere and the properties of near earth space are important in helping to understand how the sun's various radiations literally control our atmosphere, including our weather and climate.

The study of our sister planets is directly contributing to our investigation of the earth itself. As Dr. Gordon MacDonald points out, studies of the Mars atmosphere have highlighted the importance of radiative transfer of energy in atmospheric dynamics, giving us an insight into our own atmosphere that we are able to achieve only through the perspective afforded by looking at another planet.

Dr. Eshelman has found that planetary atmospheres are quite fragile. He points to the tremendous changes that earth life has caused in the earth's atmosphere in eons past, and emphasizing that the study of planetary atmospheres may be our most powerful way of discerning the true nature of the changes on earth that we ourselves are now causing.

POSSIBLE CHEMICAL CONTROL OF CANCER

Not all of the benefits of space science come from observations in space. Many of the beneficial results stem from associated or preparatory work done in the laboratory. The work of Mr. C. B. Cone, Jr., at Langley's Molecular Biophysics Laboratory is an excellent example. Mr. Cone was studying radiation effects on cells in order to understand possible space radiation effects on astronauts.

In the course of his work, he discovered that the electrical voltage across the surface membrane of a normal cell acts to exert precise control over cell division. This implies that it is an alteration in the molecular structure of the cell surface that permits the uncontrolled