Later on, he said thoughtfully, “Even though it’s possible, I hate to think it’s the answer. just imagine the impact on the world. We’d have to reorient our whole lives—and things are complicated enough already.” Standing at the gate, waiting for my plane to be called, I thought over that angle. Assuming that space travel was the solution—which I still couldn’t believe-what would be the effect on the world? It was a hard thing to picture. So much depended on the visitors from space. What would their purpose be? Would they be peaceful or hostile? Why had they been observing the earth so intensively in the past few years? I could think of a hundred questions. What would the space people be like? Would they be similar to men and women on earth, or some fearsome Buck Rogerish creatures who would terrify the average American—including myself? It was obvious they would be far superior to us in many ways. But their civilization might be entirely different. Evolution might have developed their minds, and possibly their bodies, along lines we couldn’t even grasp. Perhaps we couldn’t even communicate with them. What would be the net effect of making contact with beings from a distant planet? Would earthlings be terrified, or, if it seemed a peaceful exploration, would we bc intrigued by the thought of a great adventure? It would depend entirely on the space visitors’ motives, and how the world was prepared for such a revelation. The more I thought about it, the more fantastic thc thing seemed. And yet it hadn’t been too long since airplane flight was considered an idiot’s dream. This scene here at La Guardia would have seemed pure fantasy in 1900—thc huge Constellations and DC-6’s; the double-decked Stratocruisers, sweeping in from all over the country; the big ships at Pan-American, taking off for points all over the globe. We’d come a long way in the forty-six years since the Wright brothers’ first flight. But space travel! The gateman checked my ticket, and I went out to the Washington plane. It was a luxury ship, a fifty-two-passenger, four-engined DC-6, scheduled to be in the capital one hour after take-off. By morning this plane, the Aztec, would be in Mexico City. The couple going up the gangway ahead of me were in their late sixties. Fifty years ago, what would they have said if someone had predicted this flight? The answer to that was easy; at that time, high-school songbooks featured a well-known piece entitled “Darius Green and His Flying Machine.” Darius, it seems, was a simple-minded lad who actually thought he could fly. Fifty years. That was the time the Air Force had estimated it would take us to start exploring space. Would Americans come to accept space travel as matter-of-factly as the people now boarding this plane? The youngsters would, probably; the older ones, as a rule, would be a little more cautious.