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Will Man Conquer Space?
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Man will never conquer space.
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Such a statement may sound absurd,
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after we have made such long strides into space.
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Yet it expresses a truth that our forefathers knew
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and we have forgotten，
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one that our descendants must learn again,
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in heartbreak and loneliness.
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Our age is in many ways unique,
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full of phenomena that never occurred before
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and may never come again.
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They distort our thinking,
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making us believe that
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what is true now will be true forever,
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though perhaps on a larger scale.
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Because we have annihilated distance on this planet,
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we imagine that we can do the same in space.
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The truth is otherwise,
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and we will see it more clearly
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if we forget the present
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and turn our minds toward the past.
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To our ancestors,
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the vastness of the earth was a dominant factor
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in their thoughts and lives.
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No man could ever see more than a tiny fraction of the earth.
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Only a lifetime ago,
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parents waved farewell to their emigrating children,
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knowing they would never see them again.
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Now, within one incredible generation,
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all this has changed.
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Psychologically as well as physically,
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there are no longer any remote places on earth.
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When a friend leaves for what was once a distant country,
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he cannot feel the same sense of irrevocable separation
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that saddened our forefathers.
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We know that he is only hours away by air,
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and we have merely to reach for the telephone to hear his voice.
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When the satellite communication network is fully established,
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it will be as easy to see friends on the far side of the earth
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as to talk to them on the other side of the town.
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Then the world will shrink no more.
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From a world that has become too small,
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we are moving out into one that will be forever too large,
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whose frontiers will recede from us
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always more swiftly than we can reach out toward them.