s
giant radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. Most of our launches are followed
by this equipment and much of the best scientific information gained
from it. In the case of Pioneer V, Jodrell Bank was essential to keep in
touch with the satellite at the longer distances and, moreover, was
actually required to separate the fourth stage of the launch vehicle and
direct the payload toward its Venus orbit.

Mutual need and cooperation thus fostered by space exploration can be
expected to siphon off some of the political tensions of the future,
especially as more and more nations become interested in space and
inaugurate complex programs of their own.

LIMITATIONS ON SPACE RESEARCH

There are some who are convinced that the exploration of space is
rigidly limited and that the landing of men on extraterrestrial bodies
other than the Moon is quite improbable. They are sure that extensive
travel outside the solar system is impossible.

Admittedly, the problems of such travel are enormous. But are they
incapable of solution?

Twenty-six million miles to Venus, 49 million miles to Mars, 3,680
million miles from the Sun to Pluto at the outer edge of the solar
system. The nearest of the stars is 25 million, million miles away,
and travel to it at 10 miles per second would require 80,000 years.
Is the travel of man to the stars a futile dream? Each generation
of man builds on the shoulders of the past. The exploration of
space has begun; who now can set limits to its future
accomplishments?[78]

[Illustration: FIGURE 15.--Need for international cooperation
in the U.S. space program is illustrated by this map showing the areas
from which help must be procured for projects already planned or
underway.]

That is the thought of one of the Nation's most expert space scientists.

_"Who now can set limits * * * ?"_

It seems to mesh curiously well with one of the most interesting
phenomena of our day--the emergence of a breed of engineers,
technicians, teachers, and scientists who do not recognize limits and
who refuse to concede that something cannot be so because it fails to
fit conventional patterns or conform to the physical laws of the
universe as we now know them. Of this there is growing evidence.

For many years it has been an accepted "fact," for instance, that the
Moon is a dead world with no life upon it. The suggestion made by the
great 16th century mathematician, Johannes Kep