So we are in a state of rethinking a lot of things, and I think we've made a lot of progress, but we're still in the phase that is—I mean, we're no l… - Bernard Adolph Schriever

A word is necessary on the relationship between military need and scientific feasibility in space technology. In the long haul, our safety as a nation may depend upon our achieving “space superiority.” Several decades from now, the important battles may not be sea battles or air battles, but space battles, and we should be spending a certain fraction of our national resources to insure that we do not lag in obtaining space supremacy.

We have to make investments in technologies that provide a positive asymmetry. And only the military, only the national security, warrants the expenditure of huge funds that have pay-offs in the far distant future.

Perhaps not only initially but for all time, space technology will include as its most characteristic problem the need for going from the surface of one celestial body to another with successful passage through the atmosphere of each.