Repository: UIHistories Project: SWE - Proceedings of the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists [PAGE 111]

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However, their road may soon become a main artery to another world in which people will settle and live, which it will therefore be necessary to supply with food and with men, until some production returns to our earth by the same means. The first thing to do will be to design, and then to produce, the necessary vehicles and their fittings. What will they be like? What obstacles will have to be overcome in this unknown space, in order to perpetuate life in it? All these are questions in which we feel the presence of an unknown world full of possibilities for all, and we must gain victory at any cost. To sum up, how is it possible, in the midst of such a seething of minds and masses, to live in isolation, to work in an isolated laboratory, far from the world and contact with its people? How can we go to the source, to seek and to see, and to exchange ideas and products? Transport. How can we get large masses of raw materials, bring in the precious metal that is still too rare? Transport. How can the results of which we are proud be presented to mankind? Transport. How can one attract the working masses in order to produce, at first, and deliver afterwards? Transport. How indeed can we slow down for a moment and rest in the bosom of tender but powerful Nature, in order to meditate? Transport. How can we, in order to face the future, know ourselves better, prepare for and carry out our lives1 work -- how can we organize a world congress? Transport. This is the way of the world; we can no longer remain indifferent to anything, and if we do not dominate, we must be resigned to follow! But our choice is made by the role we have decided to play in world society. We live at too rapid a pace to be able to stop and dream. The alternative of resignation is impossible. We would be condemned by it to disappear with no return. Our destiny requires us to dominate matter; we must get ready for new tasks, and at the same time our current sciences will need to be perfected in a vast number of ways. Will we know the secrets of known sources of energy before others crop up? Research and production on the one hand, and use on the other, are tightly interdependent, mutually creating one another. Working together as a whole, they participate in the transporting of masses or individuals through the utilization of modes of energy thus obtained. In every energy source, we must look at what way it affects transportation. The world is such that every scientific effort at any point on the globe has an immediate however remote repercussion over the rest of the earth. Any need for labor or any discovery of a natural wealth creates an immediate requirement for transportation, whether the discovery is of tourist, scientific, or industrial nature. Transports do not always concern human beings, but often consumer products or production goods. The atomic age, which is so rich in potential application but not yet completely under control, is full of opportunities. What new means will be created by it? We do not yet know, but we must be alert in order to gain the upper hand over problems and exploit their symptoms. What do we mean by being alert? It may mean having sufficient general and specialized knowledge gained first of all by studies, and subsequently in daily experiences, so that nothing that can be turned to use may escape. A specialist's work is not fruitful unless nothing escapes his investigations, and whatever is not included in his field must be taken up by another specialist so that nothing gets free from our examination and perhaps our future exploitation. Who can define what needs, what sciences will govern our future life, or what orientation we must give to it? The answer is as valid in the field of III-7