19. SPACE SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 20. CONTINUING HARVEST: THE BROADENING FIELD OF SPACE SCIENCE Space Science as Integrating Force APPENDIXES, BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY, SOURCE NOTES, AND INDEX G. Reports from Space Science Board Summer Studies 438 439 1. Pre-Sputnik Ideas for Space Projects 2. First Recorded Direct Obligations to Space Science or Related Projects Figures The photograph of the Veil nebula in Cygnus reproduced in the endpapers is copyrighted by the 36. Eratosthenes' method for measuring the circumference of the earth 37. Triangulation 38. Geoid for a homogeneous, plastic, nonrotating earth 78 81 . 83 138-39 146-47 148 148 148 150 153 156-57 158 171 177 178 180 181 182 188 188 190 191 191 192 195 198 227 229 336 345 345 345 347 .. 347 348 348 348 349 349 349 349 350 350 351 352 361 365 368 383 Preface From the rocket measurements of the upper atmosphere and sun that began in 1946, space science gradually emerged as a new field of scientific activity. In the United States high-altitude rocket research had developed a high degree of sophistication by the time the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite of the earth in 1957. That surprise launch proved that the USSR had been pursuing a similar course. During the period between the orbiting of Sputnik 1 and the creation of NASA, these activities-scientific research in the high atmosphere and outer space-began to be thought of as space science. The first formal use of the phrase that I recall was in the pamphlet Introduction to Outer Space prepared by members of the President's Science Advisory Committee and issued on 26 March 1958 by President Eisenhower to acquaint "all the people of America and indeed all the people of the earth" with "the opportunities which a developing space technology can provide to extend man's knowledge of the earth, the solar system, and the universe." A few months later the phrase appeared in the title of the Space Science Board, which the National Academy of Sciences established in June 1958. Use of the term spread rapidly. From the start NASA managers referred to that part of the space program devoted to scientific research by means of rockets and spacecraft as the space science program. The researches that came under the new rubric were themselves not new. Space science initially consisted of researches already under way that the new tools of rocketry promised to aid substantially. The large number of disciplines-such as atmospheric research and meteorology, solar physics, cosmic rays, and eventually lunar and planetary science—and the recognized importance of many of the problems that could be attacked with the new tools, attracted large numbers of scientists, giving the field of space science broad support at the outset. Even in the life sciences, where the potential contributions of space techniques were less obvious than in the physical sciences, quite a few leading researchers showed a lively, if tentative, interest. As the program unfolded, the wide range of interest became both a source of strength and a cause for tension. For those able to penetrate beneath the impersonal exterior that science so often seems to present to the outsider, the whole gamut of human emotions is to be found. The pursuit of scientific truth gets caught up in a struggle not only with nature |