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existed, he joined the U.S. Navy, which had the best facilities at the time, and eventually led its malaria vaccine development efforts. The goal was not just delivering good medical care, but scaling up that care so that others would have access to it. Lacking an economic market for doing so, Hoffman found a political market in the form of government. For twenty-one years, the U.S. Navy and Army offered the tools necessary to advance vaccine development.
    But after a certain point, he also came to see the limitations of what could be done via government. He then became the classic entrepreneur, resigning from government, setting out into the private sector, and starting a company—a biotech company. He chose to operate at a new intersection of philanthropy and entrepreneurship that would permit him to take risks and try out innovative ideas in order to solve problems that there were no economic or political markets for solving.

THE “SPACE RACE” OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
    The accelerated and massive investment in global health and in the eradication of diseases affecting the poorest people on the planet has been a powerful generator of ideas and strategies in the field of health care. But, like the space race of the
twentieth century, it has applications that reach beyond its own immediate field to impact other social challenges. Outside of government, the work of global health is conducted through nonprofit organizations. Generations of social-change agents in every field will be shaped by what is happening in global health today. And the catalyst for investing in global health has been the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is the modern day NASA of the global health field.
    In the 1960s and 1970s, NASA-led space programs, from Mercury through Apollo, yielded thousands of spin-offs, adaptations, and alternative uses that have impacted every aspect of life. They range from kidney dialysis machines that were derived from processes to remove toxic waste to smoke detectors first used in Skylab that are now common in almost every home, from the fabrics of fire fighters’ uniforms to ear thermometers, from solar energy panels to weather forecasting and water treatment systems for developing nations. Few Americans have a direct connection to the men and women who have gone into space or the team that supported them. But no American was left untouched by the literally thousands of applications of the technologies created for space. The goals of the space race pushed the edge of the envelope of innovation and inspired some of the best minds of a generation to achieve things that reached far beyond the parameters of the space race itself.
    President Kennedy was able to foresee the impact of the space race when he announced the challenge at Rice University on September 13, 1962. What he said can be instructive
as we face a new kind of challenge—a challenge to improve life on earth:
    We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. . . .
    The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains. 4
    Thousands of scientists, researchers, manufacturers, computer programmers and contractors from all around the world became part of the NASA effort in the same way that the goals set by the Gates Foundation have mobilized thousands of doctors, scientists, biotech companies, labs, and universities, bringing new talent into the effort at an unprecedented pace. Global health spending will result in new medicines, vaccines, cures, and treatments for diseases and health-care practices. It has already produced new