The next pahse in space research

DR George E. Mueller, the Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flights of NASA, presented a paper on ‘Commercial Applications of Space Research’ at the symposium held at Amsterdam by IATA last autumn on the occasion of their 50th anniversary. In his paper, Dr Mueller reviewed the Apollo programme which had instituted a pattern of project management which the Fortune Magazine had called a ‘management revolution’, and pointed out the numerous different disciplines that had been needed to achieve the goal of making a lunar landing within the time specified. The essential advance needed to further the exploration of space was, in his opinion, the development of the space shuttle, which would open a completely new era of transportation on the earth and in space. Some of Dr Mueller's thoughts on the next phase of space technology are given below.