Such an agenda, along with the reformulation of assumptions governing space research, will better serve scientific and national goals, achieve maximum return on investment, encourage effective congressional and agency action, and provide benefits for the nation's citizens. The accomplishments since 1957 of U.S. scientific research in space have broadened and deepened understanding of our physical environment. As with all science, these accomplishments are but harbingers of even greater future achievements. Past successes have created a multiplicity of opportunities for space science and applications. Moreover, our more than 30 years of experience in space research has provided important lessons on how to operate the program more effectively in order to obtain the maximum possible benefit from available resources.
All disciplines reveal the complexity of the physical and biological world.
Things are much more complicated than we thought at the beginning of the space age in 1957. As examples, consider the violent astronomical events, the courses of planetary evolution, the interactions of solar and terrestrial magnetic processes, the interdependence of the various components of the Earth system, and the changes in human physiology that occur in space. We can expect to discover even more variety and more complexity in the years ahead. Perhaps the most striking accomplishment of the U.S. space program is the demonstration that humans can work in space and on another body of the solar system and can travel to another part of the solar system and return successfully. This demonstration has opened the way for human exploration beyond the Earth for centuries to come.