Criteria for Scientific Development

The space competition is only one of the major concerns of the contributors to this volume. Their investigations cover all the areas of interaction, of conflict and cooperation, between science and the state, science and the economy, science and the popular imagination.

Inherent limitations of available funds and manpower, coupled with the accelerated growth of research, have already forced us to make hard choices in the kind of research we should undertake. In the United States and Britain, 3% of the Gross National Product is already being expended for research and development, and this is increasing at the rate of 15% per annum with no sign of letting up. At this rate, the entire GNP would be absorbed by research and development by the year 2000. This being an obvious impossibility, our goals must be more carefully defined than in the past. The often conflicting claims of science-for-science's-sake and science as a means of economic advancement must be delicately balanced.