across the country, the gasoline for the taxis and limousines and other automobiles that brought us from our homes and motels. Think also of the energy required just to illuminate and heat this room—it was a little cold out this morning for a resident of Phoenix. Think also in terms of the energy required to extract the aluminum and titanium, from their natural ores and form them into those jet airliners. And the energy required to smelt and form and forge and machine the steel of those automobiles. And the energy required not only to erect this building in the first place, but also to maintain and operate it. Without the expenditure of a prodigious amount of energy, we could not maintain the social institution called the U.S. Government at its present size and complexity. We would be forced back to the size and simplicity, of 1776 when most of our energy was in the form of human and animal muscle power. Coon is right. And inherent in Coon's thesis is both a warning and an ultimate solution. Our social institutions are now so large, so complex, so varied and so worldwide that we are drawing enormous amounts of energy from the Earth. But as our national space program has at last showed everyone, the size of our planetary home is finite. There is a finite amount of natural energy that has been stored up in planet Earth for eons—and in less than 250 years we have consumed a large percentage of it. Now, if we attempt to rely solely on Earth's energy resources as we have in the past, we know that we are going to run short in time periods estimated from 25 years to 250 years in the future, depending upon which futurist you consult. It still adds up to the fact that we are going to have growing shortages of energy. As we begin to run short of energy, the first social institutions that will fail from energy lack are the most recent ones, the most sophisticated ones, the most delicate ones. These are the international social institutions, the ones that keep us from killing each other most of the time. As these international social institutions fail, we may well slip back into a new Dark Age. And there is great peril in letting this happen. Another futurist, Krafft Ehricke, stated during conversations on the night of the launching of Apollo 17—“If we fall back into a new Dark Age this time, we do so with our fingers on the nuclear triggers.” Therefore, energy we must have—and more of it all the time. And if it is not available from Earth's natural resources, we must get it someplace else. Another outstanding futurist, engineer, and retired naval officer— Robert A. Heinlein—gave me the answer in 1951. “We have just about used this planet up; it is time to go find another one.” And the eminent international scientist, the late Dr. Henri Coanda, once remarked to me: “There is no shortage of energy—we are surrounded by energy. We must only learn how to use it.” Now, Coanda's remark is certainly true when we discard the idea of “closed-system Earth.” Yes, the bounty of planet Earth is finite—- but the planet Earth does not stand alone. It is part of a much larger system, the solar system. And in the solar system is the only operational on-line nuclear fusion reactor in our immediate neighborhood that we happen to know of at this moment—the Sun. It radiates
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