Relationships, a draft report of which was presented during the Iowa City study.19 "The Committee was unanimous in its favorable general impression of the NASA program. . . . It was . . . impressed by NASA's intention to perform its mission in such a manner as to strengthen existing universities. . . ." At the summer study the discussion ranged widely without always yielding specific answers to problems. NASA's Space Sciences Steering Committee and its subcommittees came in for a great deal of comment. Van Allen felt that the process of reviewing experiment proposals in the subcommittees, which required the experimenter to be more specific well in advance of performing his experiment than perhaps he could be, tended to erode the independent way in which the scientist worked. Others felt that the system had developed a group of ins and outs, although Van Allen didn't think so. In this connection the question arose again as to whether NASA centers should be participants in the actual science or only be service centers to the rest of the scientific community. In-house versus outside review and evaluation of proposals kept coming up, with the life scientists pushing for outside peer review groups. There resulted a rather confused recommendation to NASA to consider modifying its method of proposal review and experiment selection. Many people did not favor NASA postdoctoral fellowships, but both Fred Seitz, president of the Academy, and Berkner strongly supported them. Industry wanted more support for its space scientists, but the university scientists thought that this was a bad idea, since the higher industry salaries would draw researchers away from teaching posts.

All in all, on the university question (which is considered further in the next chapter) NASA came out in the best possible position. With a general agreement as to the soundness of NASA's approach and a diversity of views on many of the specifics, NASA could find ample support for a variety of courses the agency might wish to follow.

Once initiated to the ways of summer studies, NASA space science managers found them a useful device for examining many kinds of problems. Through the years NASA sponsored a considerable number of studies, some of them narrowly directed, others of broad scope. For many years the studies were concerned primarily with the content of the NASA programwhat fields to support, which problems to attack, and sometimes which experimenters to support. The recommendations to NASA amounted to a list of good things to do, but when not all of them could be funded it was NASA's task to make the choices-as NASA had insisted in the first place.

But NASA people began to feel that it would be helpful if scientists would furnish additional advice as to priorities to observe in choosing among different researches when all were intrinsically desirable. In the summer study conducted by the Space Science Board at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, during July 1965, NASA spokesmen urged the participants to face up to the question of priorities, with little real success.20 While sci

entists were willing to establish some order of preference within a single discipline, they shied away from doing anything of the sort for a mixture of disciplines.

Not until the summer study of 1970, also at Wood's Hole, which was devoted specifically to the question of priorities, did a genuine effort emerge on the part of the scientists to face up to the frustrations of making almost impossible choices.21 The study group did an excellent job, but not without generating serious strains within the community. By choosing to ease off on magnetospheric and fields and particles research in favor of planetary research, it alienated the affections of the fields and particles workers. By emphasizing high-energy astronomy in preference to classical optical astronomy and solar physics, it created more dissidents. In the planetary field itself, which the group strongly supported, participants came close to reversing the support of earlier years given to the Viking project, because its costs were proving to be much greater than expected and were threatening other projects considered more desirable. NASA participants strove mightily during these discussions to bring home the disastrous consequences of withdrawing an endorsement of a project already well under way-largely because of their earlier endorsement—and on which a great deal of money had already been spent. NASA's concern was heightened by the fact that Congressman Karth himself was questioning Viking and showing signs of being willing to recommend canceling it. In the end the study participants agreed with NASA managers on this issue, but there can be little doubt that free of such concerns they would have scrapped Viking in favor of smaller missions such as Pioneers to Venus.

The association between NASA and the Space Science Board endured. Yet at times relations were precarious. The complacent assumption of the superiority of academic science, the presumption of a natural right to be supported in their researches, the instant readiness to criticize, and the disdain which many if not most of the scientists accorded the government manager, particularly the scientist manager, were hard to stomach at times. When Lloyd Berkner undertook in person to lay before NASA's first administrator some of the criticisms and demands of the Space Science Board, Glennan could not restrain an outburst of indignation at the arrogant presumptuousness of the scientists. His vexation was shared by Silverstein, who from time to time cautioned NASA's space scientists to guard against losing control of their destiny, a danger that Silverstein felt was being fostered by drawing outside scientists too intimately into the planning process.

Especially frustrating was the apparent unwillingness, or perhaps inability, of outside scientists to appreciate the problems with which NASA scientists had to wrestle. The complex array of emotions was best illustrated in Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate, enthusiastic supporter of the space program and severe critic of NASA. Periodically Urey would burst forth-in the Space Science Board, on the scientific platform, and in the press-with

a sweeping polemic against the agency's handling of space science. Urey's most persistent complaint concerned NASA staffing. In May 1963 he wrote to the author to discuss remarks he had been making in the press about incompetence of NASA staffing in science, in particular lunar and planetary science.22 Urey urged the author to drive out the second-raters from NASA and replace them with older, more experienced men who could give proper advice. He stated that he had talked about this matter with people from Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Pasadena, and Los Angeles and regularly got the view that NASA people are second-rate by and large. Two years later, after taking violent exception to a paper presented at a space science symposium held by the Committee on Space Research at Mar del Plata, Argentina, Urey protested to the National Science Foundation and NASA. Since the objectionable paper had been given by a university scientist whose researches were supported by NASA, Urey wrote that "a serious consideration of personnel connected with the entire NASA program is in order."23

With regard to the outside scientists, whose research proposals had been reviewed and endorsed to NASA by experts in the field, Urey did not always seem willing to let the scientific process weed out those who were on the wrong track. As to NASA staffing, NASA people saw in the complaints of Urey and others a lack of understanding of what was involved in managing the space science program. Undeniably most of the managers in NASA Headquarters were not the top-notch scientists whom the critics said they would like to see there. But repeated efforts throughout the years to lure working scientists into NASA management only occasionally bore fruit. In spite of the enticement of top positions in the program, none of the senior "establishment" came. The administrative burden at headquarters was fearful, and the climate such as to devour whatever scientific and research competence an expert might bring with him, affording little opportunity for replenishment. Those experts most needed to help direct the evolving space science program were reluctant, especially in an era when university salaries were rapidly catching up with those of industry and government, to exchange the advantages of academia—their students and the independence to follow personal research interests-for a never-ending round of headaches plus an ambience that was bound in time to destroy the very competence for which they were sought out in the first place. To continue a scientific career in NASA one had to work in the centers.

Those scientists who did come to headquarters became resigned to a vicarious enjoyment of the research achievements of the program. Their personal satisfaction came from having contributed in an absolutely essential way to the program, and thus to the advancement of science. That, and the excitement of being at the center of action in one of the greatest of human dramas, was their reward.

The incessant criticism and insatiable appetites of the scientists put a

severe strain on the tie between NASA and the Space Science Board. At times during the first years it seemed to the author as though, at the top management levels, only Hugh Dryden, Arnold Frutkin (head of the International Programs Office), and the author favored keeping the association. The rest of NASA seemed willing to cut the Space Science Board adrift, and to rely on NASA-sponsored committees for outside advice.

But the tie became stronger as time went by, particularly when the second chairman of the Space Science Board, Harry Hess, took over from Berkner. Hess, professor of geology at Princeton and originator of the revolutionary new concept of sea-floor spreading, brought with him from years in the Navy and working with the government a better appreciation of what agencies like NASA needed in the way of support from its advisers. Hess fostered a policy of not just tossing lists of recommendations at NASA and then leaving the agency to its own devices, but rather of assisting to realize the desired objectives. When Hess took over, the Executive Committee of SSB began to meet monthly with NASA representatives to provide more continuing assistance to the space science program. When Hess died in 1969, his successor, Nobel Laureate Charles Townes, continued the policy of working personally with NASA to accomplish SSB recommendations.

But in the early 1970s the Academy of Sciences began to show great concern over questions of conflict of interest and potential charges of being captive to those it advised. Thus, when a new chairman was needed for the Space Science Board, instead of consulting with NASA on possible choices as had been the custom, the Academy unilaterally—as it had every right to do-selected a candidate. James Fletcher, the fourth NASA administrator, had doubts about the choice-doubts that were shared by the author-since the proposed chairman had previously shown little evidence of giving thought to the negative effect that his outspoken criticism of various space science projects could have on NASA's efforts to defend its budget on the Hill. NASA objected to the choice; the Academy stood firm; and Fletcher gave serious thought to withdrawing NASA's financial support from the board and relying on NASA's own committees for advice. In the end NASA fortunately did not sever the relationship with the board, and the new chairman did an excellent job. Perhaps NASA's expressed concerns stimulated the Academy to special efforts to prove that NASA was wrong.

NASA'S ADVISORY COMMITTEES

Next to being personally involved in space research, the best way of keeping close to the space science program was to serve on one of the NASA advisory committees. In fact, a prime motivation in the creation of in-house advisory groups, in addition to securing the advice of knowledgeable sci

entists, was to cement relations with the outside scientific community. After muddling along for a year with the several working groups established in early 1959, NASA put together the more systematized Space Sciences Steering Committee and subcommittees.24

In doing this the intention was not to undercut the role of the Space Science Board, but NASA managers felt the need for more frequent and intimate advice than could be expected from the board. Moreover, some operational tasks, such as assisting in the selection of experiments and experimenters, were not appropriate for a non-NASA group. Still, board members felt at first that NASA was weakening the ties to the Space Science Board and for a while questioned the need for the NASA subcommittees. To counter the disquiet, NASA management invited the board to name liaison representatives to attend and participate in the discussions of the subcommittees. Similarly by invitation from the Academy, NASA observers attended meetings of the board's committees, while Hugh Dryden and the author had a standing invitation to be with the board at its sessions.

Once under way the subcommittees began to develop a systematic approach to advising NASA on its planning, and particularly on the choice of experiments and experimenters for flight missions. For the flights, formal criteria were established and over the next few years refined from experience.25 Through appropriate announcements, which later in the decade became quite formalized, NASA informed the scientific community of the existence of flight projects for which experiments were needed.26 When proposals for experiments to go on these flights came in, they were reviewed by the appropriate subcommittees.

The NASA subcommittees sorted the proposals into four different categories. At the top went the proposals of outstanding merit, well conceived, addressing a critical problem of space science, and likely to yield significant new information. Proposals which were good, but not outstanding, were assigned to category 2. Category 4 experiments were those that the group advised NASA to reject as either unsuitable for spaceflight or incompetent. The third category was special, reserved for proposals that the subcommittees judged to be potentially of category 1 quality, but which needed a great deal of work before the experiments could be assigned space on a flight.

In rating the proposals the subcommittees were asked to consider a number of points:

• The originality and validity of the experiment;

• The importance of the problem addressed by the experiment;

• The suitability of the experiment for a space mission, with an eye to eliminating experiments that could better be done by other means;