system approximately 200,000 American and foreign scientists and
engineers per year. This is a great national resource. This technology
infrastructure is dimensions larger in number and scope than the
aggregate of anywhere else in the world. Through appreciation and
exploitation of this potential, a U.S. position of pre-eminence in
science and technology could be assured for the foreseeable future.

One adjunct of this technology revolution is in the information and
information management areas- which, in the U.S., are heavily
commercially oriented. Future military application may well be
analogous to the impact of the internal combustion engine and wireless
radio on land, sea, and air forces in the 1920s and 1930s. The size of
this technological lead between ourselves and the rest of the world,
especially in the base for new information products and services,
should widen further in knowledge and in application. The "Silicon
Valley" revolution is likely to continue increasing computer capacity
on an almost annual basis. By the year 2005, computing power should be
many fold times today's capacity-perhaps ultimately beginning to close
in on the ability of humans to handle data flow as well as the ability
to condense and synthesize data.

In parallel to advances in computing power will be the ability to
transfer information into and out of the hands of individual users.
The addition of virtual reality and other technical aids will enhance
and potentially quicken individual decision-making ability.
Technologies associated with bioscience and bioengineering are likely
to be of particular importance in enhancing these capabilities and are
also an area of American predominance. Material sciences, software,
and communications are all American strengths, and should remain so
well into the next century.