The cosmic aspect, that is to say the body of problems bearing on space, is now making inroads into every single science, both old and new, theore tical and applied. This is especially brought about by the fact that natural science is being faced with the multiplying problems raised by astronautics and has to "put itself to work" on them. Thus it is not mere chance that such "cosmized" sciences as radiation chemistry, radiation physics of the solid state, radiation metallurgy, radiation genetics, radiobiology, etc., are advancing by leaps and bounds. These sciences help to study the effect of radiation in space on various chemical substances, on structural and other materials, on heredity, and on the organism in general.
The number of new "purely" cosmic sciences is steadily growing. In addition to the ones preceding the creation of applied astronautics, recent years have seen the appearance of space biochemistry, space microbiology, space genetics, space medicine, space physiology, space physiology of higher nervous activity, space psychology, etc. One could also say that planetary physics has made its appearance (with the reservations we mentioned before with respect to astrogeography and astrogeology), in view of the fact that experiments have been conducted in which the Moon was found to have no detectable magnetic field, and similar experiments are under way for other heavenly bodies. It may be expected that with further advances in the conquest of outer space research will be started in space crystallochemistry, astrometeorology, etc. It is possible that intrinsically new phenomena and processes will be discovered in space, leading to unsuspected developments and unfamiliar specialized branches of science.
It is furthermore obvious that both the youngest and the older space sciences are bound to benefit tremendously from the accumulation of factual material drawn directly from extraterrestrial sources. There is no doubt that the new space sciences will soon gain momentum and reach the same degree of sophistication as the older, well-established classical sciences.
There is also a rapid interpenetration of astronomy and the other natural sciences. New specializations are making their appearance, such as nuclear astrophysics, i. e. , a particular blend of nuclear physics and stellar astro nomy. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine nowadays a physics which does not comprise astrophysics, geology, planetary cosmogony, meteorology, etc. The astronomical sciences are becoming increasingly interwoven with
the remaining body of natural science, especially in the aforementioned subjects: selenophysics, selenochemistry, areophysics, etc. The division into astronomy and other natural sciences would not properly apply to these disciplines (or subjects), because these branches combine both astronomical and nonastronomical aspects. Thus, for instance, selenophysical or areo logical investigations, however they might be called or classified at present or eventually, will come to be conducted less and less by purely astronomical means and more and more by means of astronautics, primarily via human observers directly on the surfaces of heavenly bodies or near them.
To sum up, we conclude that modern natural science is leaving behind its geocentric past and emerging into cosmic space.
The conversion of the different sciences and of the whole body of natural science to space sciences takes a variety of forms. A case in point is that of biology. For the time being the latter basically remains a terrestrial science. However, the premises and factors orienting biology toward space are increasing in number and growing more and more effective.
One of the first indications of this was the appearance of astrobiology as a theoretical discipline at the beginning of this century. Its subject matter consists of the theoretical analysis of the possibility of life on any given heavenly body (or class of bodies), proceeding from what is currently known on the type of environment necessary to sustain life and on the physical conditions existing on specific astronomical objects. Almost no direct astrobiological observations, and certainly no controlled experiments, have been carried out in this field (barring some astrobotanical works by G. A. Tikhov and some others, and the work recently done on "astrobiological simulation"). At this point, astrobiology obviously draws upon terrestrial biology to a much larger extent than it contributes to it. It would be fair to say that theoretical astrobiology has sprung up from a terrestrial back ground and is still much too dependent on it to exert any appreciable reciprocal effect on the complex of ordinary biological sciences.