SPACE: Face the Race

Has the U.S. lag in the space race seriously damaged U.S. prestige in the world? Yes, said the U.S. Information Agency’s able Director George V. Allen, in testimony before a congressional committee last week. Testified Allen, contradicting the Administration’s position that the U.S. is not in a space race with the U.S.S.R.: as a result of Soviet space successes and U.S. space failures, the prevailing opinion in the world today is that the U.S.S.R. is ahead of the U.S. in science and technology. “The successful launching of Sputnik I created an intensity of reaction throughout the world which has rarely been paralleled by any other single discovery or invention.”

It is futile, Allen went on, for the U.S. to insist that it is not in a space race with the U.S.S.R. In the eyes of the world, the U.S. is in the race whether it wants to be or not, and the world is largely judging the two entries by their performances. “Our space program,” said Allen, onetime (1948-50) Assistant Secretary of State and longtime U.S. envoy overseas, “may be considered as a measure of our vitality and our ability to compete with a formidable rival, and as a criterion of our ability to maintain technological eminence worthy of emulation by other peoples.”