Chapter 4

[33] Sharp, James M., "The Application of Fuel Cells in the Natural Gas Industry," Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Tex., Mar. 4, 1960, pp. 2-3.

[34] Lear, John, "Towns To Be Lit by Plasma," New Scientist, Nov. 19, 1959, p. 1006.

[35] Pursglove S. David, Industrial Research, March 1950 p. 19.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid., p. 18.

[38] Space Business Daily, June 13, 1960.

[39] Cox, Dr. R. A., "The Chemistry of Seawater," New Scientist, Sept. 24, 19459, p. 518.

[40] Hines, L. J., Space Age News, Apr. 25, 1960, p. 4.

[41] Gaertner, W. W., "Functional Microelectronics," Missile Design and Development, March 1960, p. 34.

[42] Stewart, Dr. Homer J., address to the American Bar Association, Miami Beach, Aug. 25, 1959.

[43] Cordiner, Ralph J., "Competitive Private Enterprise in Space," lecture at U.C.L.A., May 4, 1960

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47] 27 supra.

[48] See "The Problem of Plenty," U.S. News & World Report, Apr. 13, 1959, p. 97.

[49] Markuwitz, Meyer M., and Gentieu, Norman P., "The Rocket, A Past and Future History," Industrial Research, December 1959, p. 78.

IV. VALUES FOR EVERYDAY LIVING

The so-called side effects of the space exploration program are showing a remarkable ability to produce innovations which, in turn, improve the quality of everyday work and everyday living throughout the United States.

In setting forth specific ways and means in which the space program is producing practical uses, it must be kept in mind that no attempt is made here to separate uses resulting from the civil phases of the program from those developed by the military phases. Inasmuch as the two are closely intertwined, it would seem impractical to do so. And, in instances where the same or similar research is being conducted by a single contractor on behalf of both phases, it is usually impossible to do so.

TECHNOLOGICAL BENEFITS

This category of the practical uses of the space program is impressive indeed.

Most of us are familiar with the plans which the United States has for using artificial satellites in ways which will be beneficial to all mankind. These include the satellite used for worldwide communications, for global television, for quick and accurate navigation, and for much improved weather prediction and weather understanding.

Here, however, is a summary of space-related developments about which the American public has heard considerably less:

First, there is the high-speed computer. Developed initially to meet military demands for faster calculation, the computer is an integral part of American industry, making it possible to do many operations with a high degree of efficiency and accuracy. Thermoelectric devices for heating and cooling, now adapted for commercial applications, were originally designed to provide energy sources for space vehicles. The glass industry, as a result of work done during and after the Second World War on lenses and plastics, promises substantial gains in the consumer fields of optics and foods. Pyroceram, developed for missile radomes, is now being used in the manufacture of pots and pans. Materials suitable for use in the nuclear preservation of food may make us even better fed than we already are.

Medical research, and our health problems, can use such things as film resistance thermometers. Electronic equipment capable of measuring low-level electrical signals is being adapted to measure body temperature and blood flow. In a dramatic breakthrough, illustrating the unexpected benefits of research, it has been found that a derivative of hydrazine, developed as a liquid missile propellant, is useful in treating certain mental illnesses and tuberculosis.

Of course, the aeronautics industry has benefited tremendously. Engines, automatic pilots, radar systems, flight equipment, capable of meeting the high standards required by space vehicles represent a great improvement over our already excellent aircraft.

A plasma arc torch (has been) developed for fabricating ultrahard materials and coatings by mass production methods. The torch, an outgrowth of plasma technology, develops heats of 30,000 degrees and can work within tolerances of two-thousandths of an inch. Another application from the missile field, which shows real possibilities, is a reliable flow meter that has no packings or bearings. This was first developed for measuring liquefied gases and should have a very wide industrial usefulness. It may even lead to improvements in marine devices for measuring distance and velocity.

Ground-to-air missiles that ride a beam to their targets must measure the distance to the target plane with an accuracy of a few feet in several miles. This principle, now being applied to surveying techniques, has revolutionized the surveying industry.

The solenoid valve, which seats itself softly enough to eliminate vibration, has been applied very satisfactorily to home-heating systems.

The use of the jet drilling for mining is another, and worthy of amplification. Missiles are already working the economically unminable taconite ore of the Mesabi Range, have helped build the St. Lawrence Seaway, and are bringing down costs in quarrying.

It is estimated that taconite will be supplying about a third of our ores in less than 20 years. Until 1947 we were unable to mine this very hard rock, and then suitable rotary and churn drills were produced. Jet drilling, now available, cracks and crumbles stone layers by thermally induced expansion and is somewhere between 3 and 5 times faster than rotaries.

Jet piercing can take us far deeper into the earth than we have been able to go so far, to new sources of ore and hydrocarbons.

In stone quarrying, jet spalling and channeling are proven techniques. Stone quarrying has been expensive and wasteful heretofore. Rocket flame equipment allows cutting along the natural cleavage planes, or crystal boundaries--hence cuts stone thin without danger of cracking and, in addition, produces a fine finish that cannot be obtained when cutting by steel or abrasive tools.

Scientific literature is beginning to contain speculations on using the principle of the missile engine to save unstable intermediate products of the chemical processes. The high heats achieved in the rocket engine can, perhaps, be utilized to produce desired products that would be lost by slow cooling. But the high rate of cooling accomplished by expanding gases through the engine nozzle, it is thought, would save these unstable compounds.

Infrared has come into its own through missile electronics. Infrared--since it cannot be jammed--appears to be challenging radar for use in guidance devices, tracking systems, and reconnaissance vehicles. Infrared is being used industrially to measure the compositions of fluids in complex processes of chemical petroleum refining and distilling. Infrared cameras are used in analyzing metallurgical material processing operations, to aid in accuracy and quality control. The entire infrared field should be significantly assisted in its growth and application through our missile-space programs.

Another very promising outcome from missile development is a computer converter that can quickly transform analogue signals--such as pressure measurements--into digital form.

In the near future, when guidance devices permit soft landing, rocket cargo and passenger transport will become feasible. Mail may become almost as swift as telephone.

We are making rapid progress in the economics of space travel: payload costs for Vanguard were about $1 billion a pound; for the near future launchings, payload cost should be about $1,000 per pound. When payload costs are about a hundred dollars a pound we may expect commercial space flight.[50]

Hundreds of other examples of the space program's value for everyday living could be cited.

One with wide possibilities is a new welding process by using a high-powered electron beam gun, developed for the fabrication of spaceships and other space vehicles. This method permits welding joints capable of withstanding temperatures up to 3,000° F.; it can be used on metals such as molybdenum and pure tungsten. And, its developers say, it results in welded joints that have deep penetration and narrow weld beads that are virtually free of contamination.[51]

Another ingenius application, resulting from the Navy's space research program, has significant utility for medicine and surgery. This is a glass fiber device which, when placed in the mouth during dental work or in the area of surgical incision, permits a much magnified televising of the operation. It holds considerable promise for teaching techniques in many fields.[52]

Another example is a finely woven stainless steel cloth designed for parachuting space vehicles back to Earth. The cloth is made of fine wire of great strength which can withstand tremendous temperatures and chemical contamination. The wire from which the cloth is woven is about one-fifth the thickness of a human hair and is believed to have marked potential for industry and consumers alike.

Here is an additional list of examples:[53]

Microminiature transmitters and receivers--used by police and doctors.

Target drone autopilot--used as an inexpensive pilot assist and safety device for private aircraft.

Inert thread sealing compound--- used by pump manufacturers serving process industries.

Satellite scan devices--used in infrared appliances, e.g., lamps, roasters, switches, ovens.

Automatic control components--used as proximity switches, plugs, valves, cylinders; other components already are an integral part of industrial conveyor systems.

Missile accelerometers, torquemeters, strain gage equipment--used in auto crash tests, motor testing, shipbuilding and bridge construction.

Space recording equipment automatically stopped and started by sound of voice--used widely as conference recorder.

Armalite radar--used as proximity warning device for aircraft.

Miniature electronics and bearings--used for portable radio and television; excessively small roller, needle and ball bearings used for such equipment as air-turbine dental drills.

Epoxy missile resin--used for plastic tooling, metal bonding, adhesive, and casting and laminating applications.

Silicones for motor insulation and subzero lubricants--used in new glassmaking techniques for myriad products.

Ribbon glass for capacitors--used widely in electronics field.

Radar bulbs--used in air traffic control equipment.

Ribbon cable for missiles--used in the communications industry.

Automatic gun cameras--used in banks, toll booths, etc.

Fluxless aluminum soldering--used for kitchen utensil repair, gutters, flashings, antennas, electrical joints, auto repairing, farm machinery, etc.

Lightweight hydraulic pumps--used in automated machinery and pneumatic control systems.

Voice interruption priority system--used for assembly line production control.

Examples such as the foregoing, it might be pointed out, do not generally emphasize an area in which space exploration is making one of its greatest contributions. This is the creation of new materials, metals, fabrics, alloys, and compounds that are finding their way rapidly into the commercial market.

Less demonstrable but equally (and perhaps more) significant areas which may expect to benefit from space exploration are set out beginning on page 35.

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

An extremely difficult problem bound up with space travel of any duration is that of food. Astronauts will not be able to take large supplies of food on their voyages and probably will have to reuse what they do take. Learning how to do this is no easy matter. Some doubt if it can be done. Others are optimistic.

The body of scientists now working directly on space feeding and nutrition is working effectively at a rate only attained by high motivation. But this motivation suffices and their efforts will ultimately provide at least a partially closed space feeding system by the time it is critically needed and, eventually, an ideal one for long voyages of man into the remoter reaches of outer space.[54]

If the optimists are right, it is conceivable that the information gamed from this research will have profound influence on food and agricultural processes in the future. The use and growth of synthetics or new foods, and their effects on the soil, could prove invaluable as the worlds population climbs and the demand for food multiplies. Better understanding of weather processes, as provided through space exploration, will also be valuable in terms of agriculture. Long-range accurate weather prediction would be worth millions of dollars in proper crops planted and crop damage avoided.

Meanwhile, as in other technological areas, space research is providing specific new tools for the food and agriculture industry. Infrared food blanching, for instance, is highly effective in preparing foods for canning or freezing. The development of a new forage harvester based on principles of aerodynamics uncovered by missile engineers is another example.

COMMUNICATIONS

This is a field of enormous promise, and its practicality has already been demonstrated to the extent of placing satellites into precise orbits, such as Tiros (weather) and Transit (navigation), and of communicating at long distances--23 million miles in the case of Pioneer V. As a result:

Government and industry technicians are rapidly developing new Earth satellites to beam not only television programs but radio broadcasts and phone conversations to every spot on Earth that's equipped to receive them. Thus this space project, far more than most, will touch the ordinary citizen. The goal: a workable, worldwide communications system in space before this decade is over. It will be, declares one researcher, "the ultimate in communications."[55]

Incidentally, the first worldwide communications system of this type, and whether it is conducted in English or Russian, may have crucial prestige and propaganda ramifications.

Such facilities should be possible through a system of carefully placed satellites so that radio signals can be relayed to any part of the globe at any time.

Moreover they appear to be essential when one considers that within the next 20 years existing techniques are apt to be stretched beyond reasonable economic limits by demands for long distance communications. It is difficult to see how transoceanic television will otherwise be possible when it is realized that there is presently a capacity of less than 100 telephone channels across the Atlantic and a single television channel is equivalent in band width to 1,000 telephone channels. It appears that a system utilizing satellites is the most promising solution to this problem.[56]

More esoteric communications systems may also arise from space research.

In some future year when a cruising space vehicle communicates with another space vehicle or its orbiting station, it may use a beam of light instead of conventional radio. Not that radio will be inoperative under the airless conditions of space--rather the reverse--but there is reason to believe that communication by sunlight not only will be cheaper but will entail carrying much simpler and lighter equipment for certain specialized space applications. (The Air Force) is developing an experimental system that will collect sun rays, run them through a modulator, direct the resultant light wave in a controlled beam to a receiver. There the wave will be put through a detector, transposed into an electrical impulse and be amplified to a speaker. Depending on the type of modulator used, either the digital (dot-dash) message or a voice message can be sent.[57]

Might not such a system find practical usage on Earth, particularly in sunny, arid lands?

WEATHER PREDICTION AND MODIFICATION

Meteorological satellites should make possible weather observations over the entire globe. Today, only 20 percent of the globe is covered by any regular observational and reporting systems. If we can solve the problems of handling the vast amounts of data that will be received, develop methods for timely analysis of the data and the notification of weather bureaus throughout the world, we should be able to improve by a significant degree the accuracy of weather predictions. An improvement of only 10 percent in accuracy could result in savings totaling hundreds of millions of dollars annually to farmers, builders, airlines, shipping, the tourist trade, and many other enterprises.

Perhaps even greater savings will come from warning systems devised for hurricanes and tornadoes.

The slight knowledge which humans actually have of weather forces can be seen from the fact that at present we do not even know exactly how rain begins.[58] Learning to predict it and to modify it, through space application, might help slow down the soil erosion of arable land--that "geological inevitability * * * which man can only hasten or postpone."[59] It is noteworthy that the two leading nations in space research, the United States and the U.S.S.R., are among the most affected by soil erosion.

The "leg up" which the United States has in this particular phase of space research is illustrated by the acute photographic talents of the Tiros satellite and their meaning to weather experts. The following description of some of the earliest pictures by the Director of the Office of Meteorological Research, U.S. Weather Bureau, is illuminating.

This picture, labeled "No. 1," was the storm that was picked up in the early orbits of Tiros on the first day of launch, April 1. This shows the storm 120 miles east of Cape Cod, with dry continental air streaming off the United States, not shown by clouds, and off the coast the moist air streaming up to the north, counterclockwise around the center, producing widespread clouds and precipitation as far north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

On that same day mention was made of a storm in the Midwest. That is illustrated by photograph No. 2. This was centered over southeast Nebraska, a rather extensive storm. Again, we have a clear air portion shown by a dark area, the ground underneath, which has less brightness than the clouds, the cold air from Canada streaming into that area, not characterized by clouds, and to the east the moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, in this general neighborhood, streaming around into that center and producing rather widespread rains. In this case near the Gulf of Mexico, where the cloud is extremely bright, indicating that the clouds are very high, thunderstorms were found in that area.

It is a sort of situation in which tornadoes are to be found in this very bright cloudy area, especially this time of year in the Midwest.

A third vortex was observed, also April 1, in the Gulf of Alaska, 500 miles southeast of Kodiak Island. The vortex circulation is clearly evidenced by the clouds which form in a circular array, and the large clear area in the center of the storm.

No. 4 picture refers to a very big storm 1,500 miles in diameter located 300 miles west of Ireland on April 2. This is a very old storm which was whirling around, had no fronts associated with it. It has long since wound up around the center. There is a rather well-marked structure to the clouds that you can see. It is quite different from the pictures in the first two. These are storms mostly over the continental area or just off the coast. The storms over the oceans seem to show more of a banded structure. By that I mean circular bands of clouds, of width perhaps ranging from 20 miles to a few hundred miles, spiraling around the center in a counterclockwise manner.[60]

HEALTH BENEFITS

Of all the problems contingent upon space flight it is doubtful if any are more perplexing than the biological ones. In fact, it now appears quite likely that the limiting factor on manned space exploration will be less the nature of physical laws or the shortcoming of space vehicle systems than the vulnerability of the human body.

In order to place humans in space for any extended period, we must solve a host of highly complicated biological equations which demand intensive basic research. The other side of the coin, however, is that when scientific breakthroughs do occur in this area, they will probably be among the most beneficial to come from the space program.

An idea of what is going on in the space medicine field can be obtained from this summary:

Engineers already have equipped man with the vehicle for space travel. Medical researchers now are investigating many factors incident to the maintenance of space life--to make possible man's flight into the depths of space. Placing man in a wholly new environment requires knowledge far beyond our current grasp of human biology.

Here are some of the problems under investigation: The determination of man's reactions; the necessity of operating in a completely closed system compatible with man's physiological requirements (oxygen and carbon dioxide content, food, barometric pressure, humidity and temperature control); explosive decompression; psychophysiological difficulties of spatial disorientation as a result of weightlessness; toxicology of metabolites and propellants; effects of cosmic, solar, and nuclear ionizing radiation and protective shielding and treatment; effects on man's circulatory system from accelerative and decelerative g. forces; the establishment of a thermoneutral range for man to exist through preflight, flight, and reentry; regeneration of water and food.[61]

In addition, intensive efforts are being brought to bear on such problems as the effect on humans who are deprived of their sensory perceptions, or whose sensory systems are overloaded, or who are exposed to excessive boredom or anxiety or sense of unreality, or who must do their job under hypnosis or hypothermia (cooling of warm-blooded animals).

A recent space medicine symposium heard this theory advanced by a prominent medical scholar:

Attractive, indeed, for the space traveler would be the choice of hibernating during long periods when there was nothing he had to do. With the increase of speeds and the lowering of metabolism, consideration of flights running several hundred or even thousands of years cannot be offhandedly dismissed as mere fantasy. During prolonged flights of many months or years there will be very little to see and that of negligible interest. The most practical way of dealing with the problem might well be to have the pilot sleep 23 of the 24 hours.[62]