Space ‘Not Unifying Mankind’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31992, 20 May 1969, Page 15

Space ‘Not Unifying Mankind’

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) NEW YORK, May 19.

One of the classical themes of science fiction deals with the unification of mankind forced by the need to meet a threat from outer space, writes Harry Schwartz, of the “New York Times.”

The nature of the menace varies from Story to story. Sometimes invaders from Mars or from a planet circling another star arrive in spaceships as would-be conquerors. At other times the danger is posed by a malignant bacterium or virus that has come from interstellar space and kills people on a scale unduplicated : since the epidemics of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. In the most ingenious variant, the threat from outer space is a hoax concocted by an international conspiracy of scientists determined to frighten the politicians into sanity. In the literary genre, at least, the response to the extra-terrestrial menace is always the same: faced by a common danger, the earth’s rulers and peoples suddenly forget about the endless sources of division and hatred among them and combine to work together for the common interests of humanity. Capitalists co-operate with Communists, Jews with Arabs, Russians with Chinese, whites with blacks, etc., etc., etc.

This science fiction theme is worth thinking about in this period when two Soviet rockets have just arrived at Venus and three American astronauts have just taken off on what is planned to be man’s closest approach yet to the lunar surface. But the fantastic technological and scientific ingenuity behind these feats has not yet been matched by any corresponding political ingenuity aimed at employing the challenge and opportunity of space as a means of unifying mankind.

On the contrary, right now Soviet propagandists are beating the drums about the Venus landings as “proof of the superiority of socialism to capitalism” while United States propagandists are em-

ploying Apollo 10 to enhance this country’s world image and we can all look ahead a few months or a few years to the time when Peking will proclaim that the first Chinese sputnik is testimony to the efficacy of “the thoughts of Comrade Mao.” It is symptomatic of the failure of political imagination that neither Washington

nor Moscow has yet even been willing to send into space an astronaut representing its allies—a Briton or a Japanese on the American side or a Pole or a Mongolian on the other. Symptomatic, too, is the way in which the United States and the Soviet Union have both made plans for landing men on the moon and

returning them to earth without consulting the rest of mankind. This has been done even though there are perils to which this planet’s life form may be exposed as a result of that feat. There is a chance—slight, but hardly negligible in view of the possible consequences —that vast epidemics could be set off on earth by organisms inadvertently imported from the moon—-or later from some other planet. Should not all the world’s governments and scientists have some voice in deciding whether that risk ought to be taken—not merely the rulers and scientists of either the United States or the Soviet Union?

In the face of the infinite opportunities and the unknown dangers space poses for mankind, the present national ideological, religious and other divisions among men are as harmful as they are obsolete. It is a scandal that some of the world’s most talented scientists and engineers are prevented from working at the frontiers of space research because they have a “wrong” nationality. The most fervent supporters of the huge expenditures now being made in this country and the Soviet Union for space research have almost always concentrated on the wrong reasons.

Man’s entry into this new realm is not important because of the abstract scientific knowledge it may produce, nor because of minerals that may be found on the moon, nor even because of new manufacturing processes that will give us perfect ball bearings turned out in tomorrow’s orbiting factories. And certainly the mere enhancement of national prestige is insufficient reason for spending vast sums on space when there are such terribly pressing needs here on earth. The ultimate argument for man's entry into space is that, in this realm above all others it is most evident that the factors which unite all mankind are far more fundamental than the factors that divide mankind. But even at this late date—two months before the first Americans are scheduled to depart for a moon landing—there is still no evidence that the politicians fully under-

stand the real imperatives of the age of space exploration. The existing space treaties and agreements are grossly inadequate to the needs of this unprecedented era. If national competition continues to dominate man’s strides into space, the existing prohibitions against national appropriation of celestial bodies, the placing of hydrogen bombs in orbit and the like may be scrapped when some Power finds its advantageous to repudiate a past pledge. The best long-run safeguard is the full internationalisation of space exploration, colonisation and research, so that all nations get the chance to participate and those who make the key decisions are responsible to all mankind.