The notion seems fantastic.

But when we look clear to the end of Earth's road (and assuming the
astrophysicists are right in their theories about the evolution and
ultimate death of our solar system) we know that Earth will one day
become uninhabitable. Life on Earth must then perish or move elsewhere.
If we further assume that mankind will not want to die with his planet
and if we acknowledge that other worlds may have been through this
entire cycle in eons past--perhaps the notion is not so unreasonable
after all.

Whatever the truth is on this score, space exploration will certainly be
of "practical" value to our descendants when that dim, far-off day
arrives.

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUES

Long before the arrival of that millennium, however, the knowledge and
understanding awaiting us through the medium of space exploration is
certain to have profound effects on the human race psychologically and
spiritually.

It already has had effects on humans of all ages.

Adults, who are paying the taxes to support the space exploration
program and reaping its practical values, are also thinking of
themselves, their country, and their world in broader, more
knowledgeable terms.

In a sense, children may be even more deeply involved.

There is a special group which may play a useful role in spreading
the new values growing from the exploration of space, and this is
the children who play at spaceman today. Whether or not they take
this interest with them beyond childhood remains to be seen.
However, the unique fact in the present situation is that never
before have children rehearsed a role that really will not exist
until they are adults. To be sure all of them will not fulfill this
childhood role, but the fact that the reality lies ahead rather
than in the past (as with cowboys and Indians) may stimulate them
to retain a sensitivity for the various meanings man in space can
have for our future.[86]

Put it another way--if it is true, as a modern Chinese philosopher has
said, that the search for knowledge is a form of play, "then the
spaceship, when it comes, will be the ultimate toy that may lead mankind
from its cloistered nursery out into the playground of the stars."[87]

[Illustration: FIGURE 16.--Space vehicles of the future may
look like this artist's drawing of an electrical propulsion craft. The
nuclear reactor is located at the extreme left,