- Chapter 11 -

- Frontier in Space: LaRouche's Moon-Mars Program -

President Kennedy will forever have made his mark in
history as the President who put man on the Moon. It is
not too much of an exaggeration to say that it was for
this that he was murdered. 
   More precisely, it was the policies related to the
space program, the policies supporting high technology
and infrastructure investment in the U.S. economy as a
whole, which made him unpopular with oligarchical
circles, who were committed to an alternate policy for
the United States. 
   Whoever was responsible for pulling the trigger,
the massive coverup of the conspiracy surrounding his
assassination involved the same circles in the
Anglo-American elite, such as Prince Philip, who wish
to see the United States become a pagan fascist
state--the new form of fascism, in this age, being
Malthusian ``ecological'' fascism. LaRouche's proposal
that America assume the task of building a city on Mars
within a timeframe of 40 years--and that that city be
dedicated to the study of astronomy, and to the purpose
of effecting an economic and cultural ``paradigm
shift'' in the United States--epitomizes the optimistic
vision which has made him the rallying point for those
determined to resist fascism today. 
   Since Kennedy's death, the United States has sunk
deeper and deeper into the morass of
deindustrialization, hedonism, and cultural despair. We
cannot bring Kennedy back to life, but we must undo the
harm, already almost irreparable, done to the United
States by the judicial railroad of Lyndon LaRouche and
his political associates--a railroad run by the U.S.
Justice Department in complicity with the
Anti-Defamation League-coordinated ``Get LaRouche''
Task Force. 

          - Science and Physical Economics -
   Lyndon LaRouche was one of the leading figures in,
and a member of the board of directors of, the
prestigious Fusion Energy Foundation, an association of
scientists and entrepreneurs committed to the
development of nuclear fusion energy and related
technologies, all of which are crucial to the space
colonization effort. In fact, it can be said that
LaRouche was the one who inspired the founding of the
group in 1975, by drawing together scientists eminent
in their respective fields. 
   As a physical economist, LaRouche had intensively
studied the work of Gottfried Leibniz. As with Leibniz,
a fundamental tenet of LaRouche's thought, is the
connection between constant advances in scientific
technology and the application of those scientific
technological advances to increasing industrial
productivity, on the one hand, and the spiritual,
moral, and therefore aesthetic health of a culture. 
   Conversely, LaRouche argued back then, as he does
now, that an ecology movement which pretends to protect
the environment by limiting the application of
technology and strangling the advance of science, must
be Malthusian. In fact, exactly opposite to what the
Malthusians argue, the high-technology route for an
economy allows it to support an increasing population
at an improving standard of living, and at the same
time allows it to protect the environment more and more
efficiently. 
   The least polluting energy source known to man is
fusion power, with fission energy running a close
second. Even high-temperature plasma reactions, which
are not nuclear, are superior, less polluting forms of
combustion. If we consider--as we should, and as
LaRouche has urged--space to be our next frontier, then
clearly our problem will be that we have too few people
to do the job, rather than ``too many people,'' as the
Malthusians lie. Rather than overpopulation, the
complaint will be: The world needs more people. 
The Fusion Energy Foundation 

   The Fusion Energy Foundation (FEF) was launched in
1975, and in 12 short years it became an
internationally recognized scientific body which
published {Fusion} magazine, in English and
many other languages; a magazine which appeared in
Asia, Europe, and Ibero-America, as well as in the
United States. {Fusion} magazine had a
circulation of 114,000 in the United States, at the
point that it was shut down by the federal government
in 1987. FEF also published the {International
Journal of Fusion Energy} and {The Young
Scientist.} 
   On April 21, 1987, the foundation was summarily
shut down in a forced-bankruptcy action by the U.S.
government. That attempt at forced bankruptcy was
overturned by the courts in 1989 and 1990, and judged
to have been carried out in bad faith, but the verdict
on behalf of the Foundation came two years too late:
FEF and its publications had already been put out of
business, in an unprecedented attack upon the First
Amendment to the Constitution. 
   The reason for the government's vindictive actions
against the Foundation was clear: Lyndon LaRouche was
by 1987 a primary target of the lawlessness of the U.S.
Justice Department, and so was everything associated
wtih him. 

                  - A City on Mars -
   What was the significance of LaRouche's Moon-Mars
proposal? 
   The political and anti-NASA upheaval created by
the disaster when the Space Shuttle
{Challenger} blew up im January 1986, was
peaking just at the point at which President Reagan was
prepared to endorse a proposal by the National
Commission on Space, headed by former NASA
Administrator Tom Paine, for a manned Moon-Mars
mission, to establish a manned colony on the Moon which
would act as the basis for developing an industrial
base on Mars. 
   The report was issued in the spring of 1986, and
President Reagan went on record as subscribing to the
goals of the program, but still today the project
remains to be implemented. 
   LaRouche reviewed the perspective set out by
Paine's commission and came to the conclusion that it
was not sufficiently ambitious to accomplish the
necessary job. He took exception to the extent to which
the commission relied upon existing, off-the-shelf
technology to accomplish the task. 
   LaRouche's objection was that a prerequisite for
manned flight to Mars was the development of
fusion-powered rockets. Only thus could we guarantee
the safety of a crew, and colonists, who would
otherwise be out of reach of help from Earth should
they get into trouble, and who would have to suffer a
nine-month-long journey from Earth to Mars, on a
ballistic trajectory. 
   The fusion-powered space flight proposal was
typical of LaRouche's approach to all questions of
scientific research and development. If the U.S.A.
decided to develop fusion rockets, then a byproduct
would be development of a fusion-based economy here on
Earth. This would mean an enormous increase in
productivity on Earth, which would in turn transform
the ``costs of the space program'' into gains in the
civilian economy. 
   The example of the payback to the civilian
economy--a ratio of more than 10:1 payback to
investment--from investment in the Apollo program was a
case in point. The fact that America succeeded in
placing a man on the Moon, gave us an edge in
semiconductor technology, the development of computers,
and of course of satellites as well--an edge that,
unfortunately, we are in process of losing because of
stupid decisions by the Presidents who succeeded
Kennedy in office. 
   In the November-December 1986 issue of
{Fusion} magazine, LaRouche's proposal, titled
``The Science and Technology Needed to Colonize Mars''
was the cover story. Here he developed a timeline for
the steps necessary to reach the Moon and Mars. This
program became a featured part of LaRouche's 1988
campaign for President, which included a half-hour
television broadcast, run nationally on prime time, on
March 3, 1988. 
   Unfortunately for the nation, LaRouche was not
elected; instead, his enemies went all out to see that
his program would not be implemented. Key to this was
the frameup which sent him to prison. Even from this
unlikely location, he remains undaunted and continues
the campaign for the space program, nuclear energy, and
major infrastructure development projects, with the
kind of reorganization of the financial system and
government financing which could move the long-range
goals of our manned space program from the domain of
rhetoric to that of practical politics. 
               - LaRouche's Proposal -
   The following quotations from the {Fusion}
magazine article touch upon the leading elements which
LaRouche introduced into the debate on America's future
in space. The extraordinary optimism which he evinced
then, was in sharp contrast to the naysayers who used
the tragedy of the {Challenger} accident to call for
contraction of the program. 
   He wrote: ``The Mars colonization mission is not
only feasible, both technically and economically; it is
urgent that we undertake this project, both for
scientific reasons, and also for economic reasons.
There are certain classes of technical and economic
problems now developing on Earth, which we shall not
solve on Earth without help from some of the scientific
and economic byproducts of a Mars colonization project. 
   ``Above all, it is time that we begin work on that
project. 
   ``For several reasons, the colonization of Mars
cannot be accomplished with the technologies we had
either developed, or were working to develop, at the
beginning of the 1970s. Essentially, the difference
boils down to the fact that Mars is a far greater
distance from the Earth than the Moon is. We need more
advanced technologies to overcome the several kinds of
effects of that great distance. 
   ``Therefore, setting the date for colonizing Mars
had to wait, until we had begun to master four kinds of
new physics breakthroughs: controlled thermonuclear
fusion, as the primary source of energy used; lasers
and other forms of coherent electromagnetic pulses as a
basic tool; new developments in biological science of
the kind now emerging around optical biophysics; and
much more powerful, more compact computer systems to
assist us in handling these new physics technologies. 
   ``During the past dozen years, we have made some
spectacularly promising breakthroughs in the four areas
just listed. At an easily foreseeable rate of continued
progress in these four areas of technology, all the
conditions for establishing the first permanent colony
on Mars could be met approximately 40 years from now. 
   ``For example: To bridge the long distances
between Earth and Mars, we need continuous acceleration
for about half the journey, and continuous deceleration
for the second half.... 
   ``On the surface of Mars, we shall require a great
deal of artificial energy. We shall consume much more
energy per person than in the most developed industrial
regions of Earth today, simply to maintain an agreeable
artificial environment. The basic industries we develop
on Mars, to produce essential materials from the
natural resources available there, will operate at much
higher temperatures than are used in any basic
industries on Earth today. 
   ``For these uses, we require energy generated at
very high energy densities. This requires what we call
today the second-generation level of controlled
thermonuclear fusion, which should be on-line about 25
to 30 years from now. 
   ``The most common industrial tool we shall use on
Mars is advanced forms of what we call lasers and
coherent particle beams.'' 
   In 1985, LaRouche was the keynote speaker at a
memorial conference called to honor the memory of the
great space pioneer, Krafft A. Ehricke, who had
recently died. Ehricke was one of the German-American
scientists responsible for America's great achievement
in the Apollo Project. 
   Ehricke went on to develop a whole conception for
the industrialization of the Moon, which should be
still the basis of all serious planning for the
development of a manned Moon base. 
   The conference was sponsored by FEF and the
Schiller Institute. 
   LaRouche opened his speech with a beautiful
tribute to the meaning for all future generations, of a
life such as that of Krafft Ehricke. LaRouche said:
``As each of us is born, each of us must die. Within
that brief interval of life, what distinguishes a life
as human, as exalted above the condition of mere
beasts, is that which the individual contributes to the
enduring benefit of future generations. Our beloved and
most accomplished friend, Krafft Ehricke, has
bequeathed to future generations a beautiful and most
valuable gift.'' 
   LaRouche took the occasion of this meeting to call
for a crash effort to develop the Strategic Defense
Initiative, but develop it as a subsumed feature of a
major new space effort by the United States. 

             - What Is a Crash Program? -
   Most great projects have essentially been crash
programs, as LaRouche developed in his speech.
``Although,'' he said, ``many of the valuable lessons
of the Manhattan Project and of the Apollo Project, are
embedded in the knowledge of some of our military
specialists and scientists today, the essence of the
principles of a successful `crash program' is not
competently understood.... 
   ``The possibility of correlating fundamental
scientific progress directly with increases of the
productive powers of labor, was opened up by Leibniz's
founding of economic science, with emphasis on
Leibniz's defining the meaning of the term
`technology,' in the context of study of principles of
heat-powered machines.... 
   ``In terms of SDI and related classes of military
assignments, the first two categories of new
technologies are the source of firepower and mobility
of weaponry, and the auxiliaries that are needed for
acquiring and aiming at targets, as well as delivering
the systems to their firing positions. 
   ``To grasp the general implications of the new
technologies for both the economy and military science,
the most efficient view is developed by giving our
`crash [SDI] program' teams the mission assignment of
establishing and maintaining colonies on both the Moon
and Mars.'' 

                - The Woman on Mars -
   LaRouche's conceptions have a special poetic
beauty. He began his March 1988 television show,
concerning his proposals for America's space future,
with a simulation of the first broadcast from the new
city on Mars. He called the show ``The Woman on Mars,''
referring to a famous movie {(The Woman in the
Moon)} made in 1929 by Fritz Lang, working with
German space scientist Hermann Oberth, which forecasts
space travel. 
   In the LaRouche broadcast, an announcer's voice is
heard, saying, ``Are you there, Dr. Gomez?'' 
   From many million miles deep in space, a woman's
voice is heard, answering, ``Yes, John. I have the
announcement for which you have been waiting. As of
five minutes ago, our environmental systems were fully
stabilized. Man's first permanent colony on Mars is now
completely operational.'' 
   Had LaRouche's proposals been implemented in 1988,
had he been elected to the nation's highest office, we
might look forward to hearing just such a message from
Mars, within 40 years. Unfortunately, that now seems much
farther away, as our country continues to sink into a
deeper depression every month. 
   Notwithstanding that, LaRouche's programs are as
sound today as they ever were. We can turn the
situation around, and in the process offer new hope to
billions of people around the world, in Africa, in
Asia, in Ibero-America, for a truly human life. 
   As LaRouche said on his 1988 television show, a
child born today might be that woman on Mars. 


  - Lyndon LaRouche on America's National Purpose -

{We quote here from the conclusion of Lyndon
LaRouche's 1984 presidential campaign platform
}Mastering the Grave Crises of 1989-1992. 
    
         - Three Missions of the United States -
   There should be no illusions about the ``good old
days'' of the 1940s and 1950s. Many Americans were
infected with, and practiced various forms of racial,
ethnic, and religious intolerance. The persons who
might be classed as ``average Americans'' from that time
were often infected with mean-spirited parochialism,
shallow thinking, and the substitution of shallow
pragmatism for morality. Yet for all those and other
unpleasant things which might be said of the young adults
of the 1940s and 1950s, the overwhelming majority among
us shared one noble quality which has been greatly lacking
during the recent dozen or so years. 
   This noble quality we shared so widely then is
typified by the response to President Kennedy's
declaration of a commitment to reach the Moon during that
decade. Few were not inspired by that, when the young
President announced it, and through the following years.
This response was symptomatic of one among our leading
redeeming qualities: we were capable of being inspired to
great national missions. 
   Put aside the debates over the conduct of wars, and
the mistakes made in choice and implementation of other
kinds of national missions. The very fact that we could
be so inspired by a national mission that we could
dedicate our emotions, our wealth, and sometimes hazard
our lives to ensure its success, was the best aspect of
us as a nation. Then, as earlier, great leaders were
those who, in government or private life, inspired the
nation or some portion of it to an important mission. 
   Too often, and too much, those aspiring to places
in government speak of enacting this or that set of new
laws, of using the power of government more and more to
regulate those forms of behavior some prefer to dislike.
Thus, we have already too many laws, so many that it
were desirable that the next sessions of Congress devote
much of their attention to removing at least half of those
statutes from the books. 
   True, law-making and administration are
characteristic day-to-day functions and responsibilities
of government. We have habituated ourselves to overlook
a far more urgent function of elected government,
especially in the Executive Branch. That function is
leadership, the role of the leader in defining great
tasks around which the nation rallies its capabilities,
to bestow upon our posterity a better world than exists
today. The action of President Kennedy, in promulgating
the Moon mission, is an excellent illustration of the most
durable accomplishment of any administration. 
   Look into the face of the child or youth. Ask that
young person, ``What will you do when you grow up?''
Listen carefully to the response. Think what that
response would have been but two generations ago, as
contrasted with the most probable response today. The
fortunate, happy child, might say, ``I am going to be a
doctor,'' or an engineer, or an excellent practitioner
of some other worthy profession or craft, or simply to
produce a happy family. Lately, during the past
twenty-odd years, we have taken that happiness from the
child and youth. Too often, we hear a response to the
effect, ``There is no future,'' except finding some new
pleasure each passing, jaded moment of pleasure-seeking,
from day to day and week to week. 
   With us, the individual mortal life is brief. It
is approximately twenty years of childhood and youth,
followed by forty-odd years of active economic life, and
then ten to twenty years of retirement at most. The
child's or youth's response to our question presumes that
he or she have some assurance that the coming forty-odd
years of adult life will be filled with opportunity for
meaningful activity. Once the child or youth comes to
grips with the reality that people eventually die, the
young person is being confronted with the question: How
do you wish to live your life, so that something good
will have come of it all once you are dead? 
   It is the function of society, including the
institutions of government, to assure to every person,
especially the young, the opportunity to live a life
full of confidence in the fact that their living will
be fruitful for present and future generations in some
meaningful degreee. We accomplish this, in part, by
providing for the education and related circumstances
of cultural development of the individual. We
accomplish this, in part, by honoring and protecting
the good which the individual contributes, to the
advantage of present and future generations. We
accomplish this by adopting national goals, missions in
the sense of the Kennedy Moon-mission, which assure the
young that the circumstances of adult lives over 40-odd
years to come permit the young person's choice of
profession to be a secure choice. 
   Thus, the crucial function of government is to
define those great tasks of the nation for a period as
far distant as 40 to 50 years into the future. This is
not so distant a time; for the operson entering a
profession today, 40 years reaches no further than the
date of their probably retirement, not much further
than the day the mortgage on the new home will be paid
off. 
   There are three missions which may be selected as
outstanding examples of policies to be adopted as
commitments now. 
   1. Since we either possess, or can soon possess
the technologies adequate to eradicate oppressive
poverty from this planet, the contribution of the
United States to that mission, at home and in
international affairs, ought to be a leading choice by
the next administration. 
   2. We may hope that by approximately 40 years from
now, we might have progressed beyond the immediate
possibilities of mere war-avoidance, to the cultural
preconditions among nations assuring durable peace on
this planet. That must be the long-range mission of all
aspects of the foreign policy of the United States. 
   3. New technologies in process of development now,
afford mankind the possibility of establishing a
city-sized permanent colony on Mars as early as 40
years from now. It is man's clear destiny to undertake
such exploration and colonization of space. In addition
to those various and incalculable benefits obtained
from space-exploration, the mobilization of
technological progress to the purpose of accomplishing
this mission assures the highest potential rate of
growth of the economy per capita on Earth. 
   So, let it be ordered, that every child and youth
of this nation, when asked whether his or her adult
life will be important to mankind, might answer
confidently, that that life will be a contribution to
making the success of these three missions possible. Let
each young person be given so the right to say with
confidence, ``My life will be important for present and
future generations of mankind.'' In a well-ordered
state of affairs, every individual life will have such
potential importance, and each individual will walk
happily through life, in the confidence that this is
so. 


----
         John Covici
          covici@ccs.covici.com