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WASHINGTON, July 9, 2003 — On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy appeared before a joint session of Congress and challenged the lawmakers — and the nation — to get behind a dramatic new goal: Sending a man to the moon by the end of the decade.
“No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space,” he said. “And none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
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On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon. Kennedy’s gamble had paid off.
There’s been a lot of talk in Washington during the past few months about yoking nanotechnology to a challenge akin to the “man-on-the-moon” mission — something dramatic and daring that will amaze the public and excite the scientists.
Experts say, however, that coming up with a concrete, government-sanctioned ambition for nanotechnology will likely be a tough process.
“It’s almost one of the greatest challenges — to come up with a grand challenge,” said Clayton Teague, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO). “It needs to be broad enough and general enough for people to understand it, but it also needs to be truly challenging and attractive enough, and inspirational enough, that it would draw scientists … to the point where they would say, `I’m willing to devote part of my career to making this happen.'”
Teague likes the idea. Kennedy’s push toward putting a man on the moon in less than nine years “was a fantastically challenging statement, and the fact that it was done is astounding in many ways,” Teague said. “Even now it’s astounding, to think that we as a nation would have made that commitment and proceeded to achieve it.”
Mark Modzelewski, executive director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, said hammering together a compelling vision for nanotechnology will demand a good bit of wading through potentially divisive politics, but he favors the man-on-the-moon notion.
“It has proven time and time again that innovation is pushed by having contests, goals, rewards,” he said. “I don’t think it’s silly at all. It lets people bear down and have focus. NASA’s notion of putting a man on the moon had so many applications for health, for defense, even for housing. There will be a ripple effect.”
Deciding upon a goal for nanotechnology will be “helpful,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology Phil Bond. But in the end, he said, it’s more important for the nanotechnology industry to “do our blocking and tackling.”
“We lead with publishing, patents and breakthroughs,” he said. “That’s more important than the rallying cry of a single goal. Maybe my opinion would shift, but for now it’s more important for blocking and tackling. Continue to push back the frontiers of knowledge.”
Steve Jurvetson, a managing director at the California venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, said that “putting a bold, audacious goal out there could be very galvanizing.”
And he’s got a recommendation to the members of the White House Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the group charged with putting together a man-on-the-moon plan.
“Whether conceptualized as a universal assembler, a nanoforge, or a matter compiler, I think the `moon-shot’ goal for 2025 should be the realization of the digital control of matter, and all of the ancillary industries, capabilities, and learning that would engender,” he said in an e-mail message.
The extreme miniaturization that nanotechnology will deliver could “restructure and digitize the basis of manufacturing, such that matter becomes code,” he said.
Jim Hurd, who started the Nanoscience Exchange think tank and who helps raise money for nanotechnology startups, championed energy as the logical area for the government to focus upon. He hailed Rice University Professor Richard Smalley’s aggressive promotion during the past year of using nanotechnology to solve the world’s energy problems.
“Clearly energy to me is the only one I’ve heard people talk about,” Hurd said. “Everybody has been talking about the energy challenge. There may be a few others in there, but I don’t even know what the number two would be.”
Mike Roco, director of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, said nanotechnology still lacks the level of backing that the space program enjoyed in its infancy, despite his contention that “the rewards are much greater with nanotechnology, because it will touch your life day by day.”
“Maybe because it’s easier to visualize the other dimension. This dimension has to be visualized in the future and better communicated to the public,” he said. “Tell people why it’s worth it to take risks sometimes to solve health problems, or to have a large development of national security research. I feel that nanotechnology is a strategic issue for the economic well-being and national security of the United States.”
Echoing the logic that underpinned Kennedy’s call for action in space — in essence, global competition — Roco said “the issue is, the leaders will be in the United States, or they will be abroad, and this is very much recognized by foreign governments.”