Preface / S. Dillon Ripley -- Introduction by the editor -- Beyond the Milky Way / Thornton Page -- Advances in astronomical technology / Aden B. Meinel -- The challenge of space exploration / Robert C. Seamans Jr. -- Rocket propulsion / Ralph S. Cooper -- Navigation - from canoes to spaceships / Charles S. Draper -- Some astronomical aspects of life in the universe / Su-shu Huang -- The electron : its intellectual and social significance / Karl T. Compton -- Ultrasonics / Arthur R. Laufer -- Digital computers : their history, operation, and use / E.M. McCormick -- The new uses of the abstract / George A.W. Boehm -- Organic chemistry : a view and a prospect / Alexander Todd -- Earthquakes and related sources of evidence on the earth's internal structure / K.E. Bullen -- The new age of the sea / Philip B. Yeager -- Drilling beneath the deep sea / William E. Benson -- The opening of the Arctic Ocean / James T. Strong -- The IGY in retrospect / Elliott B. Roberts -- The place of genetics in modern biology / George W. Beadle -- Does natural selection continue to operate in modern mankind? / Theodosius Dobzhansky and Gordon Allen -- Man as a maker of new plants and new plant communities / Edgar Anderson -- Some mysteries of life and existence / R.E. Snodgrass -- What is cybernetics? / Donald M. MacKay -- The promise of underwater archeology / George F. Bass -- The carbon-14 method of age determination / Frank H.H. Roberts Jr. -- Jet streams / R. Lee -- An appraisal of cloud seeding as a means of increasing precipitation / Henry G. Houghton -- The science of yesterday, today, and tomorrow / W.F.G. Swann.