Space Inc.

Away out there beyond the aurora and behind the moon, spins something referred to as the universe. Although Ursa Major and Mars are a long way from earth, a rocket will probably reach the moon some time this year. The moon and what spins beyond it would be reached considerably sooner if this nation's attempts to conquer space were better organized and better financed.

A somewhat shaky step in the direction of an effective space program was taken by President Eisenhower a few weeks ago when he proposed that Congress establish a National Aeronautics and Space Agency to conduct research and to administer explorations. The Agency, "at the earliest possible date," would assume work done and undone by a maze of organizations, including the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Advisory Commission for Aeronautics.

Although a centralized agency is certainly necessary, the Space Agency proposed by Mr. Eisenhower has several major if not insurmountable drawbacks. In the first place, he suggested that the agency be directed by at least ten men, representing government agencies, the Defense Department, science, engineering, and technology. Such a group is impossibly large and resultingly inefficient and such men, owing allegiances and livelihoods to rival groups, would probably be unable to agree on a vigorous and unified course of action.

Nor has President Eisenhower successfully defined the domain of the new Agency as it relates to the Defense Department agencies. In his message to Congress, Mr. Eisenhower said that the new Agency would control all programs save those "peculiar to or primarily associated with weapons systems..." The Defense Department has already made it clear that it believes that the Space Agency should devote its energies to research, which it defines as "fun in space."

Hopefully, Congress will ignore pressure from the military and business and modify the Eisenhower program so that the Agency will be headed by three, or at most five directors who will devote all their time to and receive all their money from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. It is also to be hoped that Congress will give the new agency priority on all rocket and space projects, regardless of the desires of the Defense Department. If Congress will ignore the lobbies and show some imagination, space will neither be the property of the Defense Department nor of a General Space Company dominated by private interests.

Unless an efficient, responsible Space Agency is established within the year, and unless it is granted the $2 billion suggested by the President's Scientific Advisory Commission, this nation might just as well leave space for the Russians and anyone else who might be there already.