ntal Approaches to Life
Beyond Earth," Science in Space, ch. IX, National Academy of Sciences,
Washington, D.C., February 1960.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Dryden, Dr. Hugh L., speech before the Engineering Society of
Cincinnati, Feb. 18, 1960.

[68] Michael, Donald N., "Space Exploration and the Values of Man,"
Space Journal, September 1959, p. 15.

[69] 67 supra.

[70] Space Age, August 1959, p. 3.

[71] Minneapolis-Honeywell, Military Products Group.

V. LONG-RANGE VALUES

In assessing the _practical_ values of space exploration it does not
seem logical to limit considerations to those values which are immediate
or near-future ones. The worth of a present activity may be doubled or
trebled because of its long-range potential.

Such values may not be practical within the context of today's usage,
but they may be extremely practical if we are willing to concede that
those of us living today have an interest in and a responsibility for
what happens on Earth in the decades and centuries to come.

TROUBLE SPOTS

Thinking along these lines it is not difficult to conjure up a picture
of some of the difficult physical and social problems which will be
facing the Earth in the years which stretch ahead. The foregoing
sections of this report, for example, have already indicated extensive
difficulties inherent in at least five major categories.

(1) Bursting population.
(2) Acute water shortage.
(3) Soil erosion and disappearance.
(4) Too much leisure.
(5) Intensified nationalism.

In each area it is probable that space exploration will ultimately play
an important role.

_Population_

Social scientists have been warning for years of the drastic social
upheavals which must inevitably accompany an "exploding" population. It
is a problem the complexity of which grows in geometric progression as
time goes on. In the United States nearly 300 years were required to
produce 90 million people. In the past 60 years this number has doubled.
The implications are obvious. They are only too plain to urban and
suburban planners who endeavor to cope with the antlike construction and
activity of the human race as it burgeons with each succeeding year.

Of course, this is not a domestic matter but a global one. Its
seriousness has been described as follows: "Projection of the post-World
War II rate of increase gives a population of 50 billions (the highest
estimate of the population-carrying capacity of the glo