SPACE SCIENCE, APPLICATIONS. AND ADVANCED RESEARCH, 1963-69 215 



Dr. Bisplinghoff. Well, I don't know quire what the word " jeopardize" means, 

 hut it certainly postpones it, and what I tear most of all is starting — giving a com- 

 pany a contract to develop something before the technology is ready. If there is any- 

 thing that has cost this country money, it's that kind of money, and money invested 

 in research ahead ot time is well worth the effort. 



WEATHER SATELLITES 



On November 1, 1963, NASA's internal reorganization established 

 the Office of Space Science and Applications, as well as the Office of 

 Advanced Research and Technology and the Office of Manned Space 

 Flight. This signaled an immediate reallocation of jurisdictions be- 

 tween the Karth subcommittee (which was renamed the Subcommittee 

 on Space Science and Applications) and the Hechler subcommittee, 

 which became the Subcommittee on Advanced Research and Tech- 

 nology. Prior to 1963, weather satellites were under the jurisdiction 

 of the Hechler subcommittee which was at tirst called Applications and 

 Tracking and Data Acquisition. 



Ken Hechler, a Columbia University Ph. D., author of the combat 

 story of the hist Rhine crossing in World War II, The Bridge at 

 Remagen, one-time speechwriter and researcher for President Truman 

 and Adlai Stevenson, had been elected hrst in 1958 to represent the 

 coal-rich area of southern West Virginia. A charter member of the 

 committee, he became a subcommittee chairman during his second 

 term in 1962. 



At seven hearing sessions during August and September 1962, the 

 Hechler subcommittee held successful hearings on weather satellites, 

 communications satellites, and radio astronomy. For the weather 

 satellite hearings, witnesses were called from the Weather Bureau, 

 NASA, Department of Defense, as well as the National Science Founda- 

 tion, the Department of State, and U.S. Information Agency. Chair- 

 man Hechler praised NASA for six consecutive successful launches 

 of the Tiros (Television Infrared Observation Satellite) weather satel- 

 lite, the last of which was launched while the hearings were in prog- 

 ress. When the hearings developed differing testimony from NASA 

 (responsible for R. & D. on Tiros), the Weather Bureau and the De- 

 partment of Defense (as operational users), Chairman Hechler called 

 top representatives of all three agencies around the table to work out 

 better coordination. In remarks to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State 

 Richard N. Gardner, Chairman Hechler termed weather satellites as 

 "tremendous weapons of freedom (which could) fire the imagination 

 of the people throughout the world," and he urged that greater efforts 

 be pushed forward through the World Meteorological Organization 

 and the United Nations to make the findings from Tiros available to 

 all peoples. In his report to Congress on weather satellites on August 1, 

 1963, Chairman Hechler told his colleagues: 



