I am proposing a public-private partnership to advance our arts and humanities and to celebrate the millennium by saving America’s treasures great and small.  And while we honor the past, let us imagine the future.

Now, think about this.  The entire store of human knowledge now doubles every five years.  In the 1980s, scientists identified the gene causing cystic fibrosis; it took nine years.  Last year, scientists located the gene that causes Parkinson’s disease—­in only nine days!  Within a decade, gene chips will offer a road map for prevention of illnesses throughout a lifetime.  Soon, we’ll be able to carry all the phone calls on Mother’s Day on a single strand of fiber the width of a human hair.  A child born in 1998 may well live to see the 22nd century.

Tonight, as part of our gift to the millennium, I propose a 21st Century research fund for pathbreaking scientific inquiry, the largest funding increase in history for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the National Cancer Institute.  We have already discovered we have already discovered genes for breast cancer and diabetes.  I ask you to support this initiative so ours will be the generation that finally wins the war against cancer and begins a revolution in our fight against all deadly diseases.

As important as all this scientific progress is, we must continue to see that science serves humanity, not the other way around.  We must prevent the misuse of genetic tests to discriminate against any American, and we must ratify the ethical consensus of the scientific and religious communities, and ban the cloning of human beings.

We should enable all the world’s people to explore the far reaches of cyberspace.  Think of this:  the first time I made a State of the Union speech to you, only a handful of physicists used the World Wide Web—­ literally just a handful of people.

Now in schools and libraries, homes and businesses, millions and millions of Americans surf the Net every day.

We must give parents the tools they need to help protect their children from inappropriate material on the Net, but we also must make sure that we protect the exploding, global commercial potential of the Internet.  We can do the kinds of things that we need to do and still protect our kids.  For one thing, I ask Congress to step up support for building the next generation Internet.  It’s getting kind of clogged, you know.  And the next generation Internet will operate at speeds up to a thousand times faster than today.

Even as we explore this inner space, in the new millennium we’re going to open new frontiers in outer space.

Throughout all history, human kind has had only one place to call home:  our planet Earth.  Beginning this year, 1998, men and women from 16 countries will build a foothold in the heavens—­the International Space Station.  With its vast expanses, scientists and engineers will actually set sail on an uncharted sea of limitless mystery and unlimited potential.