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Tlie situation facing the earth sciences in 1957 



Among the developments that had led in 1950 to congressional 

 adoption of the proposal for a National Science Foundation, perhaps 

 the most persuasive was the achievement of nuclear fission explosions — 

 the atomic bomb. The decisive effect of atomic weapons in the war with 

 Japan had afforded a convincing domonstration of the relevance of 

 science to national military power. The continued successes in atomic 

 physics in the early 1950's heightening the promise of commercial 

 electric power from fission and yielding a practicable fusion or hydro- 

 gen bomb, confirmed the wisdom of the Congress in sponsoring a na- 

 tional scientific effort. The steadily growing budget of NSF provided 

 sustained expansion in the support for the classical sciences — physics, 

 chemistry, astronomy, and biology and medicine. However, less sup- 

 port was being extended to the earth sciences — geology and geophysics. 

 Proposals for research projects in these latter fields offered incremen- 

 tal rather than seminal results — the extension of known data, rather 

 than the breaking of new ground. Much of the national effort in the 

 earth sciences was conducted in-house by the U.S. Geological Survey, 

 emphasizing prosaic programs of geological mapping. Under these 

 circumstances, a broad-gage proposal for a truly spectacular under- 

 taking in the field of earth sciences had a compelling attractiveness for 

 members of the earth science disciplines. 



Much of the national activity in applied research in the earth 

 sciences was sponsored by the petroleum companies, relative to the 

 exploration for new sources of oil in the ground. Following World 

 War II, there had been a substantial increase in exploratory drilling, 

 worldwide, and many new oilfields had been discovered. However, 

 during the late 1950's, the abundance of proved petroleum reserves, 

 coupled with a recession in industrial activity in the United States, 

 occasioned a retrenchment in exploratory activity on the part of the oil 

 companies. Man^ of the petroleiun scientists trained in the exploratory 

 arts were searching for teaching posts or other occupations. 



Lessened support for earth scientists and the low level of scientific 

 innovation in the earth sciences contrasted markedly with such other 

 fields as medicine (in which the Salk vaccine had been only one of sev- 

 eral nationally recognized breakthroughs), and atomic science. After 

 the Soviet Union's initial successes with earth satellites, in the fall of 

 1957, the sciences relevant to the "space race" received a great forward 

 impetus. Even as the United States redoubled the effort to catch up 

 with the U.S.S.R. in rocketry, and to preserve the threatened lead 

 in nuclear weaponry, the search went on for additional fields of science 

 in which to win new national prestige. This lesson was not lost on the 

 earth scientists. To some of them, the Mohole proposal appeared as an 

 opportunity for improved stature and recognition, and a stimulus to 

 recruitment of new talent, as well as a dramatic new direction in 

 fruitful scientific exploration. 



Evolution of Project Mohole 



The origin of the Mohole concept had a somewhat frivolous tinge. 

 Science fiction had often dealt with the topic of penetrating through 

 the earth's crust. To engage the serious consideration of the idea by 

 the scientific community became the task of a pseudosociety called 

 "AMSOC." This was the "American Miscellaneous Society," an after- 

 hours gathering of highly qualified scientists with an appreciation of 



