The future of space: Looking ahead in space

Where will technology and politics lead us in space? The pages that follow include several articles by men intimately involved in setting the course of the U.S. space program. George A. Keyworth II, the science advisor to President Reagan, edges closer than he previously has to backing a permanently manned space station. “If U.S. citizens are asked to make an installment payment [on] a space station,” he writes, “they should be allowed to share the grand vision of the future of space.” One such vision, he adds, might include “a manned lunar station, or even manned exploration of Mars.”