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knowledge. And even if the man who was master of his craft in the days of our grandfathers had knowledge to last his whole life, the master of the present and future will constantly have to keep on adding new skills to old. What was valid yesterday is obsolete tomorrow. Even though it will take millions of years, our sun will burn out and die one day. It does not even need that terrible moment when a statesman loses his nerve and sets the atomic annihilation apparatus in motion to cause a catastrophe. An unascertainable and unpredictable cosmic event could bring about the earth's downfall. Man has never yet accepted the idea of such a possibility, and it may be for that reason that he devoutly sought the hope of an after-life of the spirit and soul in one of the many So I suggest that space research is not the product of his free choice, but that he is following a strong inner compulsion when he examines the prospects of his future in the universe. Just as I proclaim the hypothesis that we received visits from space in the dim and distant past, I also assume that we are not the only intelligence in the cosmos—indeed I suspect that there are older, more advanced intelligences in the universe. If I now also assert that all the intelligences are carrying on space research on their own initiative, I am really moving into the world of science-fiction for a moment, knowing full well that I am putting my head into a hornets' nest! ‘Flying saucers’ have been cropping up on and off for at least twenty years; in the literature on the subject they are known as UFO's, the abbreviation of their American name—Unidentified Flying Objects. But before I deal with the exciting subject of the mysterious UFO's, I should just like to mention an important argument used when the justification for space travel is under discussion. It is said that research into space travel is unprofitable; no country, however rich, can raise the enormous amounts of money needed without risking national bankruptcy. True, research per se has never been profitable; it is the products of research that make the investment profitable. It is unreasonable to expect profitableness and the amortisation of research into space travel at its present stage. No balance has been struck to show the return from the 4,000 'by-products' of space research. To me there is absolutely no doubt that it will give a return such as has seldom been given by any other kind of research. When it reaches its goal, not only will it be profitable, it will also bring the salvation of mankind from downfall in the literal sense of the word. Incidentally I may mention that a whole series of COS-MAT satellites are already sound commercial propositions. In November 1967 'The majority of medical life-saving machines come from America. They are the product of the systematic evaluation of the results of atomic research, space travel and military technology. And they are the product of a novel collaboration between industrial giants and hospitals in America which is Thus the Lockheed Company which makes Starfighters and the famous Mayo Clinic co-operated to develop a new system of nursing based on computer techniques. The designers of North American Aviation, following suggestions by the medical profession, are working on an "emphysema belt", which is intended to make it easier for patients with lung trouble to breathe. The NASA space authorities produced the idea for this diagnostic apparatus. The apparatus, actually conceived to thousand religions. Der Stern said: leading medicine to new triumphs almost daily.