According to the speach
Many Americans make the mistake of assuming
that space research has no values here on earth. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Just as the wartime development of radar gave us
the transistor, and all that it made possible, so research in space
medicine holds the promise of substantial benefit for those of us who
are earthbound. For our effort in space is not as some have suggested, a
competitor for the natural resources that we need to develop the earth.
It is a working partner and a coproducer of these resources. And
nothing makes this clearer than the fact that medicine in space is going
to make our lives healthier and happier here on earth.
I give you three examples: first, medical
space research may open up new understanding of man's relation to his
environment. Examinations of the astronaut's physical, and mental, and
emotional reactions can teach us more about the differences between
normal and abnormal, about the causes and effects of disorientation,
about changes in metabolism which could result in extending the life
span. When you study the effects on our astronauts of exhaust gases
which can contaminate their environment, and you seek ways to alter
these gases so as to reduce their toxicity, you are working on problems
similar to those in our great urban centers which themselves are being
corrupted by gases and which must be clear.
And second, medical space research may
revolutionize the technology and the techniques of modern medicine.
Whatever new devices are created, for example, to monitor our
astronauts, to measure their heart activity, their breathing, their
brain waves, their eye motion, at great distances and under difficult
conditions, will also represent a major advance in general medical
instrumentation. Heart patients may even be able to wear a light monitor
which will sound a warning if their activity exceeds certain limits. An
instrument recently developed to record automatically the impact of
acceleration upon an astronaut's eyes will also be of help to small
children who are suffering miserably from eye defects, but are unable to
describe their impairment. And also by the use of instruments similar
to those used in Project Mercury, this Nation's private as well as
public nursing services are being improved, enabling one nurse now to
give more critically ill patients greater attention than they ever could
in the past.
And third, medical space research may lead
to new safeguards against hazards common to many environments.
Specifically, our astronauts will need fundamentally new devices to
protect them from the ill effects of radiation which can have a profound
influence upon medicine and man's relations to our present environment.
Here at this center we have the
laboratories, the talent, the resources to give new impetus to vital
research in the life centers. I am not suggesting that the entire space
program is justified alone by what is done in medicine. The space
program stands on its own as a contribution to national strength. And
last Saturday at Cape Canaveral I saw our new Saturn C-1 rocket booster,
which, with its payload, when it rises in December of this year, will
be, for the first time, the largest booster in the world, carrying into
space the largest payload that any country in the world has ever sent
into space.
