Benefits From The Space Race

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31187, 11 October 1966, Page 22

Benefits From The Space Race

A few years ago it was (fashionable to try to justify I the huge expenditures on spaceflight by pointing to the I many services, new devices and improved techniques that would accrue for the benefit of mankind. This argument was played down because the benefits were still somewhere in the future and nobody (knew exactly what form they would take. • Some of the fall-out or [“spin-off” from the space programme is now appearing in [many diverse ways. Medicine is one of the fields to benefit most because the techniques devised to check the condition of a highly complicated spacecraft and its occupants meet very similar requirements to those complex lifesustaining machines which are finding their way into •hospitals these days. For example the techniques used to monitor astronauts’ blood pressure can be adapted to prolong the lives of persons with some types of heart disease. A recent book titled “N.A.S.A. Contributions to

Cardiovascular Monitoring" 'calls attention to advances ' made as part of the space programme. These will find (application in surgical and ■ post-operative recovery wards lof hospitals before long. On the broad front of modern technological progress [the impact of the space programme is widely felt. Last month the National Aeronautics and Space Administration i published its one thousandth j technical brief announcing a [technical innovation of value jto industry generally. It describes improved alloys for making durable bearings and these appear to be of value in the medical field, in artificial hip and elbow joints for example. Recent technical briefs describe new inventions ranging from a radical departure in (electric motor design, a low- • cost insulation for pipes carrying very cold liquids, a leak-proof valve for -corrosive chemicals, better automatic temperature control devices, and so on. There's no telling what they’ll improve next.