Space: To Moon or Not to Moon

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In its excited reaction to Major Gordon Cooper's orbital achievement, the U S public left little doubt that it is completely sold on NASA's race to get a U.S citizen onto the moon. But in political and scientific circles, an acrid debate about the value of the man-in-space program continues. The men who make up NASA's budget fear that many a Congressman agrees with the dictum of ex-President Eisenhower: "I have never believed that a spectacular dash to the moon is worth the added tax burden that it will eventually impose on our citizens."

America's Money. When scientists discuss NASA's requested $5.7 billion budget, they show themselves deeply divided. A large and influential faction believes that the cost of man-on-the-moon could be better spent in other ways. In the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mathematician Warren Weaver, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, estimates that the $30 billion to be spent before 1970 would do all of the following:

>Give every teacher in the U.S. a 10% raise each year for ten years.

>Endow 200 small colleges with $10 million each.

> Finance the education through college and graduate school of 50,000 scientists at $4,000 per year.

> Build ten new medical schools at $200 million each.

> Build and endow complete universities for 53 countries added to the United Nations since its foundation.

> Create three new Rockefeller Foundations worth $500 million each.

But the money price, Weaver thinks, is secondary. Much more costly for the U.S., he says, will be the diversion into moon technology of a whole generation of young scientists and engineers who could be better employed in more practical fields.

A few scientists are frankly skeptical of the moon project on technical grounds. Says famed British Astronomer Fred Hoyle: "It's America's money. If it were mine, I wouldn't spend it on anything as stupid as trying to get to the moon. Neither the U.S. nor the U.S.S.R. will get there. Neither side has thought it out. If you are talking of 50 years' time, there may be a possibility, but at the moment it is just too hard. It will be anti-prestige; so many disasters will ensue if they go" on with this project."

Ballet in Orbit. Another scientific faction, typified by Lloyd Berkner, former chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, deplores the race-with-Russia aspect of the space program but yearns for the moon just the same. "Human society," says Berkner, "rises out of its lethargy to new levels of productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly appreciated goals. In the conquest of space, men, ideas and materials are pushed beyond previous limits and capabilities. The seemingly impossible is brought within the range of daily employment."

President Lee A. DuBridge of Caltech is a qualified enthusiast. He believes that merely "getting a couple of guys to the moon and bringing them back" is hardly worth doing. But space exploration to gain more knowledge of the universe can be "one of the great scientific achievements or enterprises of all time. Its impact on the world and mankind is simply beyond calculation."