Isaac Asimov Predicts the Future (1978)

then I'm here however is to predict the

future and that is very likely that

you'll want to know what gives me the

right to predict the future right I mean

what are my qualifications so I'll tell

you what my qualifications to predict

the future are my chief qualification

took place in 1952 when I found myself

in Chicago I found myself in Chicago

because I had to address the American

Chemical Society which was a thankless

task I discussed a some experiments of

mine and got very few laughs so so I

decided to visit the offices of a small

science fiction magazine called universe

science fiction at any rate I had to

think of something fast because I was

ashamed to say that I didn't have the

slightest idea of what to write and

thinking quickly I wrote a story called

Everest because though Everest was much

in the news then and I thought that

since seven expeditions had failed that

I might as well write a little story

about why expeditions failed and I

explained it by saying that the

abominable snowmen were Martians and

they kept America kept human travelers

off the top she read the story bought it

on the spot for $30 I spent half of it

in a dinner for her and me and those

days you could buy very good dinner for

two for $15 and got nowhere

went home a sadder and wiser man and

forgot about it until the next May 30th

1953 when somebody to whom I haven't

done a darn thing named Edmund Hillary

and his Sherpa sidekick tensing Norgay

climbed Mount Everest and at 11:30 a.m.

stood at the very tippy tip top they

said and

well who was there to check up you know

and that instantly placed universe

science fiction in a very very strange

ethical dilemma if they published the

story they would make me look like a

fool and if they didn't publish story

the story they would lose $30 and it

took them a second and a quarter to

decide to publish and they did they

published in the December 1953 issue so

that there was my record as a predictor

of the future I am the only man living

who ever predicted that Mount Everest

would never be climbed five months after

I will now talk about the future and the

first thing we have to remember that

you're only safe if you predict the

obvious the fact that the abominable

snowmen were Martians we're nada was not

obvious probable perhaps but not obvious

so to predict something that's obvious

let's predict that the population of the

earth will go up after all it's been

going up ever since the beginning of

human history as far as we know in fact

the only century that we know of in

which the human population dropped all

over the world was in the 14th century

as a result of the depredations of the

Black Death during which one-third of

the entire human race was killed off in

the space of maybe 25 years and it took

the human species a full century to make

up that loss and you might wonder

because these days we could do that and

maybe 20 years and see why are you see

what I mean

[Music]

and you may wonder why it took them that

long in the old days and think that

perhaps they didn't know the secret well

I have every reason to believe they knew

the secret and worked away at it as

assiduously as honest people do today

what happened was that although many

children were born many children died

the death rate was high in those days

and the rate of increase was low since

then we have managed to improve matters

and that reminds me of how difficult it

is to know a dangerous scientific

discovery when you hear one I mean

everybody is against all kinds of

technological advances that seem

dangerous large automobiles gas guzzling

monsters nuclear fission plants these

aluminium beer cans all sorts of things

people scorn scorn is there anything

they like yes cancer research they like

research into all kinds of diseases

that's good they say why are we busy

going off into space why don't we spend

our time trying to cure cancer that's

because most people don't expect to go

into space but most people expect to run

the risk of cancer but if you stop and

ask yourself what is the most dangerous

discovery that was ever made the answer

was the germ theory of disease which

came out in the 1860s because as the

result of actually learning what caused

infectious disease we gradually learned

how to take measures that minimised

infectious disease helped cure it if it

was caught and eventually through the

conquest of infectious disease we

doubled the lifespan of the human being

from an average of perhaps 35 to an

average and the more quote advanced

unquote nations of perhaps seventy so

every one of us lives twice as long as

he would have lived if he had lived say

120 years ago which is nice

most people don't object to that but it

does leave us with a population

explosion because as a matter of fact

what governs the Earth's population is

the birth rate and the death rate if the

birth rate is higher than the death rate

the population goes up or if you want to

look at it another way if the death rate

is lower than the birth rate the

population goes up and vice versa if the

birth rate is lower than the death rate

or the death rate is higher than the

birth rate have I got it all straight

doesn't matter so college audience I say

I say what I please and you sort it out

because you know what I mean now right

now the birth rate is going the right

now the population is going up fast not

faster and faster and ER at the present

moment I think it stands at something

like one point six percent per year

about five years ago it was almost 2

percent per year it's been going down

slightly because they say the birth rate

in china has fallen we have the chinese

word for that i don't know how they've

managed it I think by moral suasion they

sent around the CAD Rees from house to

house and they spend time talking to the

young wives and they spent so much time

talking she doesn't have time to raise

the birthrate but even so at one point

six percent that's 72 million people

each year additional and 72 million is

about the population of Bangladesh

almost so that it's as though we've got

a new Bangladesh on earth every year and

we haven't yet arranged to take care of

the original Bangladesh question is what

are we going to do about it and we've

got to go back to that birth rate death

rate business there are only two ways of

handling and expanding population if you

think that it's dangerous and if you

want to establish population of

stability or even reduce the population

to a reasonable level only two ways to

do it

you can either raise the death rate

until it's higher than the birth rate

or you can lower the birth rate until

it's lower than the death rate

fortunately those are the only two ways

if there were 50 ways every way would

have its adherents and be a very big

mess as it is we just count how many

people favor raising the death rate how

many people favor lowering the birth

rate of course there might be some

people who say I don't want to do

anything just let things go and the

beauty of it is that that will raise the

death rate which is the advantage of

raising the death rate you don't have to

do anything no hard decisions no

political difficulties no sacrifices

just go on do exactly what you've been

doing population will go up the death

rate will also go up eventually and

bring the population down only trouble

is that's what we call catastrophe

because the methods for raising the

death rate are also limited you can do

it by violence such as war or terrorism

or civil strife doesn't matter kill off

people in anger or by disease or by

famine

there's your choice all through history

all through the history of life whenever

a species has increased its numbers to

the point where it outstripped its food

supply that has always redressed its

numbers by an increase in death rate

it's Nature's Way if you like things

that are natural you'll be crazy about

famine

however human beings are the only

species that ever existed on earth who

are capable of foreseeing the future if

perhaps not in detail then in broad

brushstrokes show a human being a

situation in which the population is

going up and the food supply is going

down and by dint of considerable hard

thought that will eventually occur to

him that this will end in famine and it

may be that he doesn't like famine

because he suspects that it may not

strike other people only in which case

he may decide to do something about it

which is to increase the food supply or

decrease the population now of course

everyone says right away well let's

increase the food supply for goodness

sakes it can be done we can support 4

billion people what's needed is not more

food we have plenty of food just

distributed more decently fix it so that

everyone gets his fair share fix it so

that governments are sane and don't do

things that are stupid fix it that

people are honest and unselfish and

share with each other

fix it that the economic system is

honest and trade is efficient and

everybody works decently and if pigs had

wings they would fly but even if that

happened in about 40 years there'll be 8

billion people on earth and if you've

managed to keep up with that and 40

years more there'll be 16 billion people

on earth and in a little while 250 years

to be exact the total number of

population on earth will be such that

the average density will be 100,000 per

square mile now 100,000 per square mile

is something that's easily described for

those of you who have ever been in

Manhattan at lunch hour

that's it I'm there every lunch hour I

know exactly what it looks like people

all over the streets wall-to-wall with

lots more hidden in the skyscrapers and

in 250 beg you partners at 250 years

though it's 450 I wouldn't lie to you

and 450 years of the present rate the

population doesn't see the world over

will be a hundred thousand per square

inch not only a nice places like the

Berkshires but in Greenland Antarctica

the Himalayan mountains the Sahara

Desert and if you'll throw planks across

the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean on them

too and you have the feeling that you're

going to have one world girdling

skyscraper parsha partially apartment

houses partially factories partially

partially all kinds of things schools

colleges and the entire ocean taken out

of its bed and placed on the roof of the

globe-girdling and growing and growing

algae or something like that

because all those people will have to be

fed and the only way they can be fed is

to allow no waste whatever item1 no

competition so as you can't feed other

creatures - as well as human beings that

means not only no more semadar and

tigers no more

Burmese - ERISA's no more California

condor it means no more Pussycats no

more puppy dogs no more gold fishes no

more caterpillars no more nothing except

human beings and of course they can't

live on something which has waste can't

waste the thing we've got to grow

something which is 100% edible like one

celled creatures and for goodness sakes

you have this ocean on the apartment

house roof boiling away in the Sun just

frothing over with algae and everyone

Somalia have thick conduits leading down

the ocean water from which you take out

the algae and all the other plankton or

whatever the heck it is and you pound it

and you separate it and you Flay

you cook it finally you have your pseudo

steak and your mock veal and your

healthful sub vegetables and so on and

then you send the water it's left over

up there but you have to grow some more

algae in addition to the algae unit

exists you're going to have to fertilize

them give them nutrients where can you

get your nutrients from fruits god sakes

only from chopped up corpses and human

wastes so you've got other conduits

leading upward this is not exactly such

a good world but maybe if we manage to

make it will be used to it and we'll say

this is great

except that in 40 years more the

population density of the earth will be

200,000 per square mile obviously in a

relatively short time like for instance

3,000 years the total weight of flesh

and blood will be equal to the total

weight of the earth and the 9,000 years

it'll be equal and total weight of the

known universe so let's face it sooner

or later we'll have to stop we can't not

do anything either to populate either

the death rate will go up or the birth

rate will go down and I personally

prefer that the birth rate go down

question is house is going to happen

because the disadvantage of using the

birth rate going down as a method of

controlling population is that it's

never been tried really and we don't

know if it'll work so certainly we're

going to have to use some method that's

never been used and I've got a method

believe it or not I have noticed that

throughout history whenever the

birthrate has been high the social

status of women has been low and this

makes sense this is not a pure

coincidence this is reasonable because

if a woman has a lot of babies and if

each one takes nine months and so far

this is one thing the Industrial

Revolution is

not been able to change nor does it help

to get more men on the job and besides I

don't know if any of you people have

noticed it but after the baby is born

and hangs around the mother an awful lot

for a while and before the baby stops

hanging around the mother there's

another one on the way and then another

one than another one and the woman has

all she can do to bear the babies and

suckle a babies and take care of the

babies and clean the house and cook and

pull the plow and the horses and feeling

good and things like that and under

circumstances like that you're going to

waste time educating a woman for what

you're gonna waste time expecting her to

do things that are human like helping to

run the world of course not poor thing

is enough work to do so she just stays

there ignorant and without shoes and

working away until she dies but then

she's easy to replace on the other hand

and those periods in world history not

too long and those areas not too

extended in which women have had

reasonable treatment treated as kind of

subhuman men

the birth rate has dropped automatically

in fact people right away start worrying

about race suicide as soon as the birth

rate drops never worry about race

suicide as the population goes up this

is a peculiarity of the human species

and you say why on earth should the

birth rate drop since the highest since

absolutely the highest calling any woman

can possibly aspire to is that of being

a wife and mother what else can she

possibly want to do you hear all over

the place about how great it is

motherhood you know and I was mistrust

that because I always figure that

anything that has to be pushed that hard

can't be that good I figure nobody goes

around saying eat

you know it'll keep your strength up

nobody goes around with billboards

saying don't be a fool breathe so that

when you're forever being told how great

it is to have lots of children I figure

someone's getting something out of it

besides I figured were having children

of that great men have figured out a way

to do it

mind you I'm not against children I have

two of my own of course when I said to

my own they didn't do much no no man

ever does but still I wouldn't want

people not to have any children because

if children stop altogether then the

human race comes to an end in less than

a century no matter how many of us there

are but to say you don't want no

children doesn't mean you want all women

to be baby machines there's such a thing

as moderation one or two children is

plenty can a woman be satisfied with one

or two children

sure she can why not it isn't so great

having a lot of children if you have

nothing else to do certainly and the

population will automatically drop and

in addition the brainpower of the human

species will automatically be doubled as

far as honest use of it was concerned

without adding a single person to the

actual population might be more than

doubled we've never given women a chance

they may be smarter than us

[Music]

of course some men are afraid of this

they feel that they'll be sharing some

of their precious privileges don't look

at it that way you're sharing some of

your responsibilities my own feeling is

it's about time that women did half the

work in the world and and took half the

risks and half the blame and all the

rest of it thank who knows the last act

of male chauvinism on earth may be that

of forcing women to take their share

much against their will too darn many

women are so happy at having hats taken

off in their presence and being helped

across the street that they don't mind

being slaves in exchange and I say we

don't need this kind of women so there's

my solution you'll give women equal

rights and every possible respect part

of the birth rate will go down the

population will be stabilized

Matthieu humanity will survive so that

women's lib is vital not only for women

but for men too of course people people

say to me how are you going to persuade

all the different places on the earth to

grant equal rights to women even macho

communities like south of the border and

old and old traditional places where

women have for thousands of years been

considered a domestic animal somewhat

higher than the ox perhaps but

definitely lower than the horse and I

feel

I feel that what's going to happen is as

population goes up is going to be clear

to governments all over the world that

things are just going very bad and I'll

have to do something and I'm convinced

that there'll be no way of handling the

problem humanely except by giving women

equality forcing women to accept really

quality of course you know what human

beings are like they may prefer inhumane

methods like forcible sterilization like

massacres like all sorts of fun things

like that there and to people who are

against birth control I suppose this is

preferable at least I can't imagine why

else they should be opposed to birth

control well then if we manage to

control the population what next the

difficulty is of course that there is

supposed to be

60 billion barrels of oil and the 600

billion barrels of oil on the ground and

we're consuming 30 billion barrels a

year 20 billion barrels a year if you

divide 600 billion by 20 billion and you

keep the zero straight the answer is 30

which means that the present rate of use

we've got enough oil to last us 30 years

and after that were in trouble is plenty

more energy but we're geared the earth

is geared to the use of oil which is by

all odds the cheapest the most

convenient energy source we've ever had

to develop other energy sources is going

to mean a capital investment and it's

going to mean a lot of maintenance and a

lot of research and a lot of trouble so

what we ought to do is start going

through all this trouble and all this

expense and all this effort and all this

emotional turmoil right now and conserve

our fossil fuels as much as we can so as

to give us as much lead time as possible

and this is going to be difficult and

the only thing in its in its favor is

that

may save civilization for those of you

who think it's worth saving for those of

you who don't you might recall that if

you don't save it we lose several

billion lives the world over of which

your own may be won and if you still

don't think that's important

then you're fortunate nothing can happen

to you that's important now where are we

going to get energy from this plenty of

energy in the universe this plenty of

available energy in the universe

it just means learning how to use it and

what we want there are all kinds of

energy I won't bother listing them all

because this is you can't pick up a

newspaper or a magazine without there

discussing different energy sources

we'll take it as read there are all

kinds of energy sources and we can use

them all because in some places on earth

and it's sometimes and for some purposes

one particular energy source may be

particularly convenient heck there many

times when human muscle is the most

convenient energy source although this

gets hard to believe but try

reproduction without the use of human

muscles and you'll see what I mean it

doesn't work with windmills well what we

need though backing up all this is some

form of energy which is copious safe and

eternal by copious I mean there's enough

of the energy to supply Earth's entire

needs even if all other sources of

energy were discounted by safe obviously

I mean that there are no side effects

resulting from the use of energy which

can cause harm and eternal means well it

sounds like it means lasting forever but

supposing we limit it and say it lasts

as long as as humanity does is it all

right

if it runs out when we run out there's a

species okay then let's take these one

that I cut one at a time what's copious

there are only two forms of energy that

are really copious in the sense of

always

being copious one is nuclear fusion this

is not to be confused with nuclear

fission which we have now nuclear

fission is very useful it works we know

it works

that keeps New England warm during the

cold winters when Ohio freezes to death

because one year it's natural gas the

next year it's coal meanwhile New

England has no problems it has nuclear

plants which produce the electricity and

it can ship electricity to other parts

of the country you don't like nuclear

plants I don't blame you but you use the

electricity it produces it's one of

those things you demonstrate against

nuclear plants but you don't turn off

the electric switches so that I

I beg leave to sniff a little hypocrisy

here but well if you prefer to sniff

that you may

nuclear fusion on the other hand has an

easier source it's heavy hydrogen not

uranium heavy hydrogen can be gotten out

of the oceans not only that it delivers

seven times as much energy weight for

weight as nuclear fission does it

doesn't form nuclear wastes it does form

trittye it does involve tritium and

neutrons which we hope will produce a

far lesser problem than the radioactive

ash that the fission plants do and it is

available everywhere

since water is practically a universal

commodity except in some deserts where

very few people live anyway there's only

one catch with nuclear fusion which by

the way will last for billions of years

there's only one catch not as we haven't

got it yet and we don't know when we'll

have it I feel we'll have it before long

but we haven't got it yet and when we do

get it it'll take perhaps 30 years

before we can build a large nuclear

fusion power plant and get all the bugs

out of it and there are some people who

suspect that the bugs will be

sufficiently complex so that we may not

be able to make use of it after all I

hope that these pessimists are

confounded but we can only wait and see

meanwhile we can't afford to attempt

nuclear fusion alone or entirely we must

go to the other source of energy which

is copious can support us all safe

produces relatively little in the way of

injurious side effects and eternal will

last as long as humanity well and that

of course is the Sun and since this is

Sunday I say to the proper reverence if

we can use Sun power I don't mean just

in low intensity situations as in

warming houses I mean by conversion into

electricity which is a high intensity

energy

sort of thing that can be done with

prescient techniques we have

photoelectric cells we have solar

batteries we can expose wafers of

silicon to the sunlight and build up an

electro-motive force and create an

electric current we have to it's poor

low efficiency thing so far and quite

expensive so far and sunlight is very

dilute there's a lot of sunlight but

it's spread out so that we would have to

coat thousands of square miles of desert

area so to get maximum Sun and even then

it wouldn't be working twelve hours out

of every 24 and the average because you

don't pick up much in the way of

sunlight at night and there's so far no

efficient way of storing electricity so

that we can we can pick up a lot of end

electricity during the day and then use

the stored electricity at night you

would have to have stations at opposite

ends of the earth different places that

always be some in daylight and of course

also even the the air does stop and

absorb a certain amount of solar energy

no matter how clear it is at any time it

gets misty and foggy and cloudy it loses

a lot more and you can't help but think

how much more efficient it would be if

we could build the solar power

collecting stations in space put them up

over the equatorial plane at a height of

20 mm plus miles and have it revolve

around the earth in 24 hours

synchronous revolution about the earth

so that are always stay more or less

over one spot on earth it would absorb

sunlight the full range of solar energy

never in any way stopped depleted

absorbed by anything at all hardly ever

be in the Earth's night shadow under

ordinary conditions would mist they

thinned the shadow the tapering schnike

beam at a height of 20 mm plus miles and

would only pass through at a certain

period of time before and after the

equinoxes

and over the space of a year it would

spend only 2% of its time in the shadow

and of course you would have a number of

them all around the earth and they could

supply the whole earth with energy

beaming him down in the form of

microwaves to be absorbed on earth with

much greater efficiency than undiluted

sunlight is of course we know that

microwaves can be dangerous we're not

going to beam them down in the middle of

Amherst even though some of you may

think it's a good idea and there is

every reason to think that we can't

arrange it so if anything goes wrong the

beam is instantly dispersed becomes only

minimally dangerous and is stopped

naturally you wouldn't want to move

through the beam but presumably

airplanes will know how to avoid it and

even if they do go through it they will

remain through it so small or so so

short a time that the danger is minimal

birds flying through it if they decide

to pause on the wing while in it and fly

round and round and round may eventually

come out broiled but I have every reason

to think that birds won't do it even if

you beg them to it may work there's the

danger of thermal pollution that is that

is heat is added to the earth which it

wouldn't otherwise get so that the

average temperature of the earth would

go up and you would that would limit the

amount of energy you could receive from

such solar stations because if you raise

the temperature of the earth

sufficiently while you'll melt the ice

caps and raise the water level of the

oceans 200 feet and drown all the

coastal plains of the world which are

precisely the most populated regions

well if we wouldn't with this would this

doesn't mean we can't use any amount of

heat just not too much it still leaves

us a liberal supply until such time

as we learn how to help the earth

radiates the excess heat

well now what else is good about this

thing which is generally considered a

kind of feat of fantasy hard-headed

people are against such solar power

stations for a variety of reasons they

say you realize how expensive it is sure

sure I realize how expensive it is it's

likely to take a hundred billion dollars

a year say over a space of 20 I'm sorry

100 billion dollars over the space of 20

20 years we should say 5 billion dollars

a year who's going to spend 5 billion

dollars a year it's a lot of money it's

more than tuition right now

but the people who are worried about

five billion a year don't realize that

we spend a lot more than that on booze

and a lot more than that on smokes and

no one has ever said that the space

program does any more harm than waste

money there are rumors the tobacco and

alcohol do actual harm beyond the waste

of money

actual physical harm of course they also

bring pleasure and people say this is

cheap of you Asimov since you don't

smoke and don't drink to cast aspersions

upon other people's pleasures and imply

that they should easily sacrifice them

for something you were interested in and

I recognize the Justice of this and I

sniff a certain amount of hypocrisy and

myself when I talk this way but then

supposing we consider war and

preparations for war now who it gets

personal pleasure out of war who really

considers it a fun activity these days

nobody is going to admit in public he

wants war he enjoys it because the

excitement makes his blood race through

his veins and just gives them that good

old tingly feeling everyone gets up and

says I hate war but we have to be

prepared as a deterrent right so that

the world now spends four hundred

billion dollars every year to support

its various war machines its various

competing war machines four hundred

billion every year I used to say three

hundred billion now it's kind of four

hundred billion by the year 2000 the

present rate of increase it'll be one

trillion a year if we get there which I

doubt well for goodness sakes what is

the four hundred billion dollars a year

buying us what good are no war machines

we can't use them we can't have a

thermonuclear war at all because it's

universal destruction as a matter of

fact it doesn't supply a thermonuclear

war doesn't supply us

with the minimum virtue of a war which

is one of the reasons I don't think

it'll be fought you see the thing with a

thermonuclear war is we have every

reason to think it'll s maybe a day and

a half and then a day and a half there's

no time for promotions to come through

for the generals

[Music]

it's worse than that you can't even have

regular Wars you can't even have the

kind of wars we once had in the good old

days the fun Wars like World War two I

mean you can imagine the Soviet Union

the United States getting together in

deciding the generals are rusty and they

need a war but c'mon fellas on a bright

we won't use nuclear weapons we won't

use jet planes we're going to build us a

lot of World War 2 artillery and planes

and tanks and we'll fight it like

gentlemen so so they'll draw along down

the middle of a neutral nation and

they'll line up you guys are so naive

that's what neutral nations are for for

the decision and you'll line up and

either side and for four or five years

maybe six if it's too exciting to stop

you have frontal penetrations and flank

attacks and artillery bombardments and

bombing attacks and then maybe if you

want some sort of old-fashioned

excitement poison gas things like that

at the end of the time at the end of the

time you should you see who's where who

has accomplished what how many people

have been killed and you assign

indemnities and orange exchanges of

territory and all that losing side

shoots as generals now that's that's the

great problem I've always maintained

that if the losing side in any war

automatically shot his generals and if

the generals were told this in advance

there never be any Wars because the

generals will always say they weren't

ready but you don't do it that's

considered not sporting but why can't we

fight a war like that easy we don't have

the gasoline for it anymore

you know how much gasoline it takes to

run even a world war two war nowadays

more than we can afford to spend

considering we've only got a thirty year

supply left and don't tell me we're

going to find more gasoline supply

petroleum supplies no matter how much we

find it may extended another ten years

no more heck you can't even fight little

Wars anymore I mean supposing you have a

war between two small

nations that don't have nuclear weapons

they're forced to fight it with

non-nuclear weapons naturally neither

one is going to fight it unless they can

get the weapons from one of the great

powers so that they can have really

sophisticated non-nuclear weapons

otherwise there's no fun in fighting the

war

well that means one side calls in the

Soviet Union the other side calls the

United States now they fight the war can

only last six days

after six days one side may be winning

whereupon the other side has to be

helped by its nation even more because

they don't want to lose face which means

the other nation has to help its side

before you know it you've got a

thermonuclear war so if there's any

danger of one side winning and usually

that's that's pretty determinable after

six days is anything that they they stop

it happens all the time the other kind

of a war is when you have a small war

where the great powers aren't interested

this hardly happens anymore in which

case they fight with slings and arrows

of outrageous fortune and it takes them

17 years to kill a hundred people and

nobody cares or you can have terrorism

you can always have terrorism because

all it takes is five men or women you

call yourself the cosmic international

army of human righteousness and when no

one is looking you shoot people in the

back and you proudly proclaim it in

secret messages where no one is looking

and say how brave you are

well you get the headlines you get

pictures in the paper if you happen to

be caught and imprisoned your comrades

kill somebody else to get them to

release you and it's more fun than you

can shake a barrel of a barrel of

monkeys that the only thing is it never

accomplishes anything it just never does

in the whole history of mankind

terrorism has never accomplished

anything except when it's backed by an

official army and these days we can't

have an official army backing it because

the whole thing is we can't fight a war

so it's just terrorism all by itself you

get nothing out of it except newspaper

headlines television coverage a little

pain and discomfort to individual people

and if you're not directly involved you

can endure it philosophically and

therefore what the heck is the whole use

of this entire military machine you say

is it deterrent just to make sure

there's no war fine

except that just keeping a military

machine in being is extremely expensive

and and wastes a huge amount of energy

and accomplishes nothing but destruction

we're going to be destroyed by military

machines even if we don't use them and

yet we spend 400 billion dollars a year

as a quick road to suicide and we don't

feel we're wasting the money for one

thing we're going to get our money's

worth we want suicide we'll get suicide

no question of being cheated but if

someone were to suggest spend five

billion dollars a year for a sure source

of energy which will be serviceable for

the entire world you holler expense

expense it's four hundred million

dollars a year for destruction not one

penny for salvation this is the new cry

of all the hard-headed critics and the

only reason they're hard-headed is cause

solid bone from ear to ear

now let's suppose we have these solar

power stations we're building them we

found the money well heck we were going

to get the material from you know earth

is running low on all sorts of resources

how are we going to build a hundred

power stations up there along with all

the spaceships it takes and all the fuel

it takes and so on well for one thing as

far as material is concerned we've got a

beautiful piece of real estate up there

in the moon the moon is 181st the mass

of the entire Earth and it's only there

two hundred and thirty seven thousand

miles away you say listen that's a long

distance no it isn't it's three days

away it's three days away we have sent

so far

let's see now 15 people to the moon

twelve mate at three didn't but every

single one of them got back you can't

get safety records like that almost

anywhere and that even though they wrote

wrote on ships which were the best you

could build with the lowest bidders and

now Columbus he did something that was

difficult I don't want to run down the

astronauts believe me you couldn't get

me on a you couldn't even get me in an

airplane but nevertheless the fact

remains if I had my choice I'd rather go

with Neil Armstrong than with

Christopher Columbus Columbus had three

ships that was salvaged that was

salvaged on the point of sinking any

storm

what if sunken any stone in fact coming

back a stump did sink the Santa Maria

but going there he hid the only seven

week stretch in the history of the North

Atlantic without a storm what's more he

didn't know where he was going he

thought he was going to Asia he didn't

make it frankly and it's and as for the

crew they didn't know any with anything

about where they were going there was

nothing with the heck you go to the moon

you've got it easy a drive to the top of

the atmosphere look around there's the

moon

you aim at it and furthermore if you're

going to the moon you knew for sure that

they weren't going to be hostile natives

there so on the whole going to the moon

is easy in terms of our technology today

it's much easier then Columbus is struck

to America so we go there and we set it

up as a mining station we can get

everything from the moon that we need

except carbon hydrogen and nitrogen and

that earth will supply for a while of

course lots of people are horrified they

say gee we've been we've been mucking up

the earth now we're gonna go there and

muck up the moon too and my answer is

why not the moon doesn't belong to

anybody there is no life on the moon of

any kind there aren't even any germs to

give you concern over you know bacterial

rights

now there are two things that concern us

on earth one is that the moon looks

pretty and you don't want it sort of

them you don't want it more feet

fortunately fortunately Providence and

its infinite wisdom has decreed that the

moon presents one face only to the earth

at all times you know I have a feeling

I've been neglecting you people and this

means that we can work on the other side

where no one standing on earth will ever

see the moth-eaten as' the other fact is

that the moon thanks to its mass does

create the tides and if we reduce the

mass we reduce the tides and we might

not like this but I assure you that all

our fooling around on the surface of the

Moon and digging up or etc is going to

take thousands of years before we make

the slightest perceptible diminution of

its mass so I think we can use the moon

fine and of course it's not going to be

useful to commute to outer space and to

the moon in order to build the space

power stations very expensive to send

people up at 8 a.m. and bring them down

at 5:00 p.m. you know what you really

need a space colonist space settlements

you'll have people living in space

settlements and they'll be doing the

work course that'll be interesting that

as they do the work other space

settlements other power stations

they'll be quickly returning profits on

the initial investment not only will the

expense be far less than that which is

produced by the by the competing

military establishments but whereas the

competing military establishments never

return a profit these space activities

will in the form of energy eventually

and in the space of a few decades we'll

be getting far more back in the way of

energy than we ever spent building them

in fact we can build all kinds of things

in space one thing one advantage space

has is is lots of room there we can

transfer observatories into space we can

transfer laboratories into space we can

transfer industries into space where

they can take advantage of hard vacuum

of high and low temperatures of hard

radiation of gravity free conditions all

sorts of things will make it possible

whom possible for them to produce all

kinds of industrial cybernetic etc

etcetera acts tools devices that either

can't be performed it can't be formed on

earth at all or only with the greatest

difficulty fact space may be the Japan

of the 21st century furthermore if we

get if we get as many as much of our

industrial establishment into space as

possible why we'll get rid of the side

effects of Industry lots of people who

don't like what the Industrial

Revolution has done to man they make use

of all its advantages but they don't

like its disadvantages and they would

like to see get rid of our industrial

society provided they can think of some

way of doing it without losing their

firm grip on the advantages you know

it's these people who denounce the

automobile and strum away on their

electric guitars anti automobile songs

so I say if you get industry into space

you are in a sense getting rid of at

least some of the disadvantages of our

industrial civilization and saving its

advantages they're not far away only a

few thousand miles but all their waste

matter all their pollution all their

noise all their whatever you don't want

is up there you don't even have to send

many people up there because undoubtedly

if civilization continues they'll be

automated and computerized to a

fare-thee-well and with everything up in

space none of it actually belongs to any

particular spot on earth it would pay F

body on earth to contribute all they can

even if a small nation can only

contribute paper clips let him

contribute all they can to the

establishment of the space economy and

it would encourage international

cooperation to the point where it would

be the equivalent of a world government

world government has a bad press nobody

wants a world government but I say we

need a world government and I admit that

might be a good idea not not to call it

a world government I figure you can call

it anything you want you can call it

anarchism if you want you can call it

freedom and liberty if you want you can

call it a genuine cooperative spirit

amongst Earth's proud population if you

want just so long as it's really a world

government it's necessary you can't help

but as long as the world is divided up

into 150 separate regions each one of

which thinks each one of which thinks

it's God and that it's national security

comes first and everything else second

we're all gonna die so we got to get

away with it

I don't like having a now world

government I don't like any government

they all charge me taxes I hate it but

there's no way out you got over you look

I get letters from people saying yours

for less government what they really

mean is yours for Less centralized

government if Washington abdicates and

there's less government at the center it

means that the local bully-boy and the

block is the government and I would

rather have it in Washington the local

bully-boy knows where to find me

so there's the future I foresee as a

possible one energy from space space

fully exploited a nice computerized

automated civilization women's lib also

which I haven't discussed in this

particular speech but for very good

reasons

revolutions in education and automatic

end to racism because the earth cannot

can cannot continue under an appropriate

civilization as long as some people feel

rightly that they are discriminated

against and this is going to be a sort

of peaceful world a sort of world as I

see it which has accomplished its aims

and they're liable to be bored to death

I mean having saved them from all the

different kinds of deaths through

overpopulation through energy starvation

through pollution through internal

violence and terrorism through all this

you end up with everyone just yawning

themselves to death Plus after all

through all of history through all of

history men have been used human beings

have been used to living with risk and

danger etcetera etcetera all still

exists up there and in the end find new

place where for a period of time

population can expand where you can be a

pioneer where you can take your risks it

may be that the space settlers will be

the cutting edge of human exploration

that it is they who will explore the

outer solar system it is they will build

and take part in this great starships

that may someday leave the solar system

forever on their slow way towards

distant stars it is through them that we

may fall heir to the universe it is

through them that we will finally

outgrow the infancy of the human race

stuck as it is to the cradle of the

earth and through them we will finally

become adults and expand and spread out

into our proper home which is nothing

less than than the entire universe and

if out there we

find other creatures intelligent enough

to be expanding on their own then I

suggest we will by that time discover

that there is such a thing as a sibling

hood of intelligence any intelligent

species that has reached the point where

it can expand beyond its own planetary

system must have defeated those or maybe

never had them those vile instincts

which led them to fight with each other

because if we can't defeat them

we'll never get out into space will all

die right here on earth if we get out

into space it's because we have learned

how to do something better than to

destroy our brother and sister and if we

do they do too and when we meet it will

be on an entirely new basis of humanity

in a general sense not referring to the

human species alone after all the vast

evolution of the universe from the very

beginning of its existence as a cosmic

egg or is a thin scattering of dust and

gas has been to increase the complexity

of its parts until some of it has grown

sufficiently complex to have a brain

sufficiently elevated to be able to look

at the universe and wonder what it is

and what it's like and how best to

cooperate with it to expand it is

different parts of the universe becoming

aware of itself and it doesn't matter

what the outward shape of the

self-awareness is only its function that

of self-awareness and when we can join

the Brotherhood of intelligence at last

we will know that the human species is

finally adult thank you very much

[Applause]