Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

In this essay Fuller expresses what may well be his penultimate view of the human condition. Here, in a mood at once philosophical & involved, he traces humanity's intellectual evolution & weighs its capability for survival on this magnificent craft, this Spaceship Earth, this superbly designed sphere of almost negligible dimension in the great vastness of space. He's optimistic humanity will survive &, thru research & development & increased industrialization, generate wealth so rapidly that it can do great things. But, he notes, there must be an enormous educational task successfully accomplished right now to convert a tendency toward oblivion into a realization of potential, to a universe-exploring advantage from this Spaceship Earth. It's been noted that Fuller spins ideas in clusters, & clusters of his ideas generate still other clusters. The concept 'spaceship earth' is his, & tho used by Barbara Ward as the title of a work of her own the idea was acknowledged by her there as deriving from him. The brilliant syntheses of some fundamental his principles given here makes of this book a microcosm of his system.