Of course each scientific society also has responsibilities to its own members. These are second-order considerations. Our common task is to see that scientific research continues to receive the support it needs in an era in which the available portion of the federal budget is shrinking. We also have a common interest in seeing that enough bright young American students select careers in science, so they can contribute to our future strength. When we look on our predecessors a few centuries past, what we remember and honor is the discoveries by explorers that opened up the world, erasing the words terra incognita from our vocabularies.
Scientists are the new explorers.
Future generations will look back to this age with mixed feelings about some aspects of our civilization, but with admiration for the mysteries we have solved, and the technologies we have invented. Provided science continues to flourish. Our three societies will cooperate whenever possible in convincing members of the Congress and the Administration that the support of science is not optional, but is absolutely vital to our future. We cannot get a free ride on the science done in other countries. The results become known in the home country, and applied by its industries, well before they are widely published.