working with an applied research activity. I don't think that necessarily both groups have to be exactly the same, but we should have a few good research people who are free to move around where these applied things are going on, become completely familiar with it, alert the local people as to the various things to look for, and then as time goes on we will, I am sure, learn all kinds of new things.

Senator BIBLE. What you are saying is they both should go on.
Dr. SCHAEFER. Exactly.

Senator CASE. That is the whole point, Mr. Chairman.

Senator BIBLE. I know we have had comments that there hasn't been adequate research and this bill was probably premature because you had not completed the basic research.

Dr. SCHAEFER. You will always find that in the successful research laboratories a good director sees to it that the fellow who is concerned about applied research is also working closely with theoretical physicists, and chemists. And when you see the results of such coordinated work, you always see a successful laboratory because you can't possibly do all the things, figure out all the things before hand.

One nowadays hears a great deal about planning and the ability to plan for new ideas. This is ridiculous. I once asked Dr. Langmuir how many of his basic discoveries came by sitting down and working things through to its ultimate conclusion. He said not one, everyone of them was a fortunate accident. But his mind was receptive to this accident, and therefore when he saw it happen he exploited it. That is the kind of thing you find when you work in the field. You can't possibly get the answers in a laboratory. You have to go out into the field.

Senator CASE. But he worked in the laboratory enough that he was able to recognize something when it happened in the field?

Dr. SCHAEFER. That is right.

Senator BIBLE. I appreciate that contribution, Dr. Schaefer. At our first hearing on this bill we had some testimony about the use of weather modification in fogbound airports.

Do you have any comments on the advances that have been made in that field? Is that at all realistic as yet?

Dr. SCHAEFER. Well, there you have to differentiate between supercooled clouds and warm clouds, or warm fog and supercooled fog. I think in the case of supercooled fog there is a very good chance that one can remove or at least modify to a useful degree low-lying stratus and the fog which is on the ground.

Now, it is much more difficult in terms of the warm cloud because in the warm cloud, the particles are very far apart; it is hard to get them to coalesce, because they don't have much substance, and, while I certainly am not dismayed at the possibilities, I would say that we don't know any very effective way at the present time.

Senator BIBLE. Who does research in that field? Is that an airport program, airlines program?

Dr. SCHAEFER. Some years ago a great deal of work was done at Arcadia, Calif. It was a cooperative approach in which a number of governmental agencies as well as private concerns, who thought they had the answer to fog-removing methods, pooled their resources and attempted to remove the fog, and I might say quite unsuccessfully. It is not an easy problem.

But like any of these things, maybe the answer to it lies just around the corner and the person with the right idea hasn't yet come up with it. Maybe something in the field of electrical phenomena is the answer. Senator BIBLE. Senator Schoeppel, do you have any questions? Senator SCHOEPPEL. I will defer to Senator Case.

Senator BIBLE. Senator Case you may question Dr. Schaefer. Senator CASE. Your question, Mr. Chairman, brought to my mind this brochure entitled "Project Cirrus, the Story of Cloud Seeding," which was reprinted from the G. E. Review for November 1952, on page 18 of that brochure there are a couple of photographs which show the paths in clouds which were cut by seeding with dry ice.

Dr. SCHAEFER. I think this is the field of meteorology in which you will find very little argument about the result of these effects. Everybody has agreed that, with the proper degree of supercooling, there is no difficulty whatever in cutting holes in clouds; we have cut holes and descended through them in actual flight operation. This is one field I am pretty sure there is very little controversy in any more. But I should say when it was first proposed we were greeted with a great deal of skepticism.

Senator BIBLE. May I ask a question so that I can understand this just a little better?

Have you actually gone into a fogbound airport and made any type of weather modification which lifted the fog enabling the airplanes to land?

Dr. SCHAEFER. We have done it not with the fogbound airport, but with an airport which had a layer of low stratus clouds above it, a few thousand feet above, which was closed to any planes which were not equipped for instrument flying.

Senator BIBLE. Except instrument flying, only those could come in? Dr. SCHAEFER. That is right. A hole was produced so that a plane not equipped for instrument flying could go down through and land. This was done.

Senator BIBLE. I see.

Dr. SCHAEFER. This kind of thing has been developed to a rather good degree by the United States Army Signal Corps in some more recent experiments.

Senator BIBLE. Senator Schoeppel has a question.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Dr. Schaefer, what other nations in the world have moved out, in your judgment, in a very practical way on this overall study that you are discussing?

Dr. SCHAEFER. Well, this is not too easy to answer, Senator, because things are changing so fast, but I will say this, that the Japanese have done a very outstanding job as far as I have been able to determine in talking with the people in the field. They have so far as I am aware the best coordinated program at the present time.

The Swiss have a Federal commission on the study of hailstorms which is directed primarily toward the possibility of suppressing hail. In most of the countries there are programs under way, some of them well coordinated, some of them the same as in this country.

There might be somebody in the audience who could answer this a little better than I could. But I would say in a general way I don't know of any country which doesn't have something going on in the field.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. In other words, the other countries of the world are on the move in this general area of exploration?

Dr. SCHAEFER. That is correct.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Let us now discuss the situation in our own country. It seems to me as though there is lacking an agency to bring together all this information for evaluation.

Dr. SCHAEFER. That is right.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Now, here we have our Government weather agencies. There have been some who have discussed this matter with me since I am a member of this subcommittee who have said, "Well, why should we have any other approach than the strict or the centralized approach to the weather activities of all types and kinds centered in one central Government agency, for the most beneficial results, for the most economical approach, and better able to control all of it?"

Now, I take it from what you have testified here this morning that you believe that under this bill there rests a framework for doing just that. Is that a fair statement of what you feel?

Dr. SCHAEFER. Well, I would personally very much deplore any organization which would completely funnel all of it through any one agency. After all, this is still a democracy, I hope, and therefore I think it is extremely important that we retain the initiative of individual groups to carry on their own research. But I would hope that we would have some centralized agency which would be continuously reviewing what is going on and encouraging work done where gaps appear. I think it would be very dangerous to put all this control in one place.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. That is the very point I want to make here, that is the very point I want to bring out.

Dr. SCHAEFER. There is no group that is ever going to do the same as any other group. Therefore, if two groups went out to carry out a fog-prevention program, let's say, one group would approach it in an entirely different way than the other group, therefore you are sure to get something more out of this double approach than if one group carried all the work on its own shoulders. Therefore, I think anything which develops in this field should have the freedom of action that we enjoy in this country as typified by the private groups, the public groups, and-by "public groups" I mean the State-sponsored groups, as well as the Federal groups-and I think it is highly desirable that all we have is a group that keeps an eye on what is going on and periodically revises and brings together in conferences the workers in the different fields, but at the present time we have no effort of that kind except the Advisory Committee on Weather Control. They have sponsored several conferences in which we do have a chance to get together and swap ideas. But I think it is quite desirable that they be given a greater hand than they have had in helping where they see deficiencies, either helping by actually having the ability to let projects or by drawing the attention of the National Science Foundation to the need for work being done in certain fields.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Then from a legislative matter it would be your judgment that we should leave that in a very, very flexible way for the greatest possible experimentation and approach in the varioussay the areas of the country, as well as your individual private groups. scientific groups? In other words, we had better watch this thing of control or rigidity very carefully.

Dr. SCHAEFER. That is right. Of course, when you do that you immediately say, "Well, this is therefore going to be pretty expensive." But I think in terms of the value to be obtained it is not at all expensive.

We retain the thing which has made our country what it is, the initiative of the private individual to go out and find things out for himself and not having somebody tell him what to find.

Coordination is the primary job that I would think this central group should have.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. In other words, then, that should be encouraged as much on a voluntary basis rather than on a mandatory approach.

Dr. SCHAEFER. Of course, that is one of the nice things about this bill: it says you put up matching funds, and we will work with you. I think that is quite important, because you have to have interest and enthusiasm and a desire to do, if you are going to get anywhere in the field, because it is a very difficult one.

Senator BIBLE. Dr. Schaefer, if I wanted to find out today exactly what had been done in this field of cloud modification from all of the different agencies, private agencies, Federal agencies, land-grant colleges, any others that might be interested in the work, where would I go?

Mr. SCHAEFER. If you ask me that question on the telephone, I would say call Capt. Frederic A. Barry in the Advisory Committee on Weather Control. He probably knows more about what is going on than anybody else. At least I would hope this would be the case, and it ought to be.

Senator BIBLE. In other words, they gather the results of all these various weather modification programs?

Dr. SCHAEFER. That is right. And in my contact in the field that is the group that is now being recognized as the group that gathers this information together. It is the logical way to have this happen. After all it is almost the ideal situation in that you have both private individuals as members and Government representatives as individuals. They don't all see eye to eye, which is very good. Therefore, it is the interplay of the various minds represented in that group which makes it as effective as it is.

Senator BIBLE. You think in that connection S. 86 does not become too restrictive?

Dr. SCHAEFER. That is right; I think it is ideal the way it is set up, just as it is.

Senator BIBLE. Pardon my interruption, Senator Schoeppel.
Senator SCHOEPPEL. I have no further questions.

Senator BIBLE. Senator Yarborough desires to question Dr. Schaefer.

Senator YARBOROUGH. Dr. Schaefer, I note from page 4 of your statement that you say that control of tornadoes or lightning, and the effects are likely to be susceptible to man-induced control. I judge as a scientist by using the word "likely" there you mean that you think it within the realm of feasibility that we are able to do something about these death-dealing tornadoes; is that correct?

Dr. SCHAEFER. The only way I can see, the only hope I can see of approaching that very important field is to make a basic study of where these storms come from. Now, fortunately the United States Weather Bureau, through the severe local storm warning center in

on.

Kansas City, is doing an exceptional job, in understanding what goes I have a feeling within the next few years we are going to have the answers to a lot of questions that are plaguing us now. First of all, where do they come from, how fast do they come, where do they form, is there any possibility that before they become a death-dealing storm that they are moderate storms or even minor storms which somehow become coordinated?

If that is the case, there is a possibility that by seeding the young storms before this potential energy builds up, one could dissipate them. That is the philosophy that we follow with both lightning and hail. You mentioned that you would like to have mention made of that.

The only way I can see where one can ever hope to modify severe storms of that kind is to catch them before they are severe, when they are still just puffy clouds over a mountain or when they are just a small mass of clouds moving across the plains, and somehow learn to dissipate them before they become organized. Now, this is not an easy job and I doubt if in 5 years you are going to have the answer to it. But we are never going to have it unless we start toward it. As I say, I would like to pay tribute to the group at Kansas City who are doing this exceptional job in understanding more of the basic causes, developments which produce the tornado.

Senator YARBOROUGH. I have no further questions.
Senator BIBLE. Further questions, Senator Case?

Senator CASE. Dr. Schaefer, do you think that any private agency will dare undertake modifying with these potentially dangerous clouds?

Dr. SCHAEFER. No; I don't.

Senator CASE. The reason I asked that, Mr. Chairman, is that in the history of Project Cirrus, which was compiled by the public_relations services division of General Electric in July 1952, they relate that flight tests of December 20 produced or seemed to produce a general snowstorm or at least there was a coincidence of a snowstorm, and the fact caused some independent speculation and it was so important that it was brought to Dr. C. G. Suits, director of the Research Laboratory of General Electric, brought by him to the attention of Vice President R. E. Leubbe, who was general counsel of the company.

It was recognized that the possibility of liability for damage from cloudseeding experiments was a very worrisome hazard in this new form of cloud experimentation. Since such a threat to the share owners' money would not be balanced by any known gain to the company's products or business, there was great reluctance to incur risks of uncertain but potentially great magnitude.

It was considered particularly important for this reason that any seeding experiments be conducted under Government sponsorship. No further seeding flights were made until such sponsorship was provided.

I have read that from this report by General Electric, and then, however, a contract was received from the Signal Corps which led to the project which became Project Cirrus.

The reason I am asking that question is because with this interest that there is in the modification of clouds before they build up-and its significance, perhaps, for control of hail or at least modification of hail and lightning and even perhaps tornadoes-if we are to have any research in that field, I feel that the Government is going to provide it, that the commercial cloud seeding companies will not monkey,