Space: Science and Salvation

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat

And we're just getting started. Some two dozen missions to study the global environment will be flown by the year 2000. NASA programs in the United States and other nations are building the knowledge base that is a critical prerequisite for achieving a sustainable future.

Space exploration is also providing phenomenal insights into the nature of our universe. The Hubble Space Telescope is opening doors we didn't know existed, and blowing minds world-wide. Most recently, it has given us striking evidence that the universe may be billions of years younger than we thought. The Hubble has found conclusive evidence that massive black holes exist at the core of active galaxies. And it's brought us the first views of infant galaxies, which formed only about two billion years after the Big Bang.

And that's not all.

Hubble data has confirmed the existence of protoplanetary disks around newborn stars. This is the strongest evidence yet that the same basic process that formed the planets in our solar system may be common throughout the galaxy.

But what next?

For one, satellites, including the new generations of hand-held mobile and broad-band communications satellites, will play a critical role in this revolution. They will provide affordable links to the global network from the most remote corners of the planet. And they will help link existing terrestrial networks as well. The result will be more open markets, more freedom of information, stronger democracies, more productive workers and a higher quality of life for billions of people around the globe.

Satellites will help communications and computer companies to develop ever more sophisticated products and services, like microwaves and coffee-makers that work automatically and can talk to each other to make your life easier.

A new generation of "information appliances" will replace today's computers, cellular phones and televisions: Wallet-sized, wireless, personal digital assistants that help you organize your life and keep in touch with your office, digital newspapers, magazines and books delivered directly to your laptop computer. These and countless other new tools will enable users to access and manipulate data in ways that we cannot even imagine today.

Presently, the great challenge of space exploration and utilization is making it affordable and efficient, and that's exactly what NASA is doing. The Jet Propulsion Lab, for example, is now developing concepts for a ten-pound spacecraft that is no bigger than your fist.

The next century will likely see an armada of tiny, intelligent machines to travel outward from Earth to explore new worlds. These small spacecraft will require less power and smaller, lower-cost launch systems. They will take advantage of next generation on-board intelligence capabilities and will have little need for elaborate terrestrial control and operation centers. The result will be to greatly increase the science output while reducing the physical and human resources required to develop and operate a mission.

There will even be occasions when we conduct dramatic new exploration missions without ever sending spacecraft to distant worlds. In the not too distant future, we may have the technology needed to image planets that may be orbiting nearby stars. It might be possible to infer through spectroscopic analysis of their atmospheres or the color of their oceans

whether they are life-bearing. And from there, exploration and colonization. This is no longer just science fiction.

And there's more to come but I'll save it for next week when I'll talk about the future of the space program, its applications and how it will change your life and your children's lives.