[BROOKINGS REPORT]. Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs.

Washington, D.C.: House of Representatives, April 18, 1961., 1961.. Very good. INCLUDES THE CONTROVERSIAL SECTION TITLED: "THE IMPLICATIONS OF A DISCOVERY OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE" - Octavo, 9 inches high by 5-3/4 inches wide. Softcover, staple bound in original printed self-wrappers with the original owner's name & date stamped at the top of the cover page: "5-15-61 A. M. Levine". There are minor creases to the corners of the front cover. xi, (1) & 272 pages. A few page corners are lightly bumped. Near fine.

First edition. RARE in Commerce.

"Prepared for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by the Brookings Institution. Report of the Committee on Science and Aeronautics U.S. House of Representatives Eighty-Seventh Congress First Session. April 18, 1961. - Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed."

The report contains the following chapters: Introduction: Goals and Methods, Comments on the Organization and Functions of a NASA Social Science Research Capability, Implications of Satellite-Based Communications Systems, Implications of a Space-Derived Weather Predicting System, The Implications of Technological By-products, Implications for Government Operations and Personnel Use, Implications for Space Industries, General Implications for International Affairs and Foreign Policy and Attitudes and Values.

A brief 1 and 1/4 page section of the "Attitudes and Values" chapter entitled "The implications of a discovery of extraterrestrial life" became highly controversial and led to accusations of a government cover-up of evidence of extraterrestrial life. The controversies were further exacerbated by a series of footnotes, including the following: "It has been speculated that, of all groups, scientists and engineers might be the most devastated by the discovery of relatively superior creatures, since these professions are most clearly associated with the mastery of nature, rather than with the understanding and expression of man. Advanced understanding of nature might vitiate all our theories at the very least, if not also require a culture and perhaps a brain inaccessible to Earth scientists."