Joan Fleckenstein, age 11, of Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, for her question:
Why do men want to go to the moon?
People depended on Wilbur and Orville to fix their bikes. But the young Wright brothers dreamed of traveling by air. They studied all the possibilities and at last were ready to test their fantastic invention. As you know, this was the first successful engine driven airplane. But wouldn't you know, the people back home complained. They said that the Wrights should stop wasting time and tend to their bicycle shop.
Nobody paid much attention when the Wright brothers invented the airplane aside from those who said it was a waste of time. Certainly on December 17, 1903, nobody dreamed that their first flight would lead to the fabulous air age. It seems that everybody forgot that the world ¬and especially human history must keep changing. And each step forward depends on ideas and brave dreams. It also calls for enormous effort and sometimes for sacrifices.
We live at the beginning of the Space Age when, for the first time in human history, we realize that it is possible for earthlings to visit other worlds. This is a fantastic dream of the ages and in our time we have seen the first of it proved possible. Without a doubt, that is the main reason why men wished to land on the moon. Surely every young space ager dreams of voyaging to visit another world. Well, the first small step has succeeded, for our nearest other world is the moon.
The age of airplane flight was costly, very costly but the rewards were far greater than anyone expected. The space age is a far more stupendous advance. So one would expect it to be even more costly. And so it is. One also would expect it to produce a lot of rewards. And it so happens that the department of space age benefits has turned out to surpass everybody's wildest expectations.
One reason for this is the fact that space is a new environment that calls for new everything. It was necessary to design special clothes and food, air and water systems for spacemen. Special spacecraft need special fuels, metals and chemicals. All these new items were devised to make the space age possible. But hundreds of them also are used to improve everyday items down here on the ground.
Perhaps the greatest benefit occurred behind the scenes. Scientists were becoming so specialized that it was hard to understand what experts in other fields were doing. Space is a new realm that calls for changes in everything. The space age called for experts in all fields to give their best. Different specialists learned to exchange ideas and work together as teams.
All sorts of new space age items already are used in our everyday lives. Space age satellites send down global pictures of the weather and relay long distance TV. Other satellites survey water and mineral resources and spot crop diseases related to global food supplies. All these and countless other bonuses are ours because men wanted to go to the moon and teams of experts worked like heroes to make this possible.