When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.

We all knew this. We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis.

We do not yet possess ourselves and we know at the same time that we are much more.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue.

But I don't think we'll go there until we go back to the moon and develop a technology base for living and working and transporting ourselves through space.

We've complemented that with a second office to think about how we need to prepare ourselves for that period 10 or 15 or 20 years from now by way of investment in our technology our organization and our people.

Technology may create a condition but the questions are what do we do about ourselves. We better understand ourselves pretty clearly and we better find ways to like ourselves.

If we invest in researching and developing energy technology we'll do some real good in the long run rather than just making ourselves feel good today. But climate change is not the only challenge of the 21st century and for many other global problems we have low-cost durable solutions.

The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by any new technology.