“I would like simply to point out that the space program has by all standards become America's greatest generator of new ideas in science and technology.”

—  Wernher von Braun

Responsible Scientific Investigation and Application (1976)
Context: Without wanting to seem overly partisan, I would like simply to point out that the space program has by all standards become America's greatest generator of new ideas in science and technology. It is essentially an organization for opening new frontiers, physically and intellectually. Today we live in a different world because in 1958 Americans accepted the challenge of space and made the required national investment to meet it.
Young people today are learning a new science, but even more importantly, they are viewing the earth and man's relationship to it quite differently — and I think perhaps more humanly — than we did fifteen years ago. The space program is the first large scientific and technological activity in history that offers to bring the people of all nations together instead of setting them further apart.

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Wernher von Braun 22
German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space arc… 1912–1977

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“The space program is the first large scientific and technological activity in history that offers to bring the people of all nations together instead of setting them further apart.”

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