167 



unproved. During this period, especially in the Senate, criticisms were 

 voiced concerning the selection procedure employed by NSF that had 

 chosen Brown & Root to manage the project. The contract itself was 

 closely reviewed. The evidence of a "race to the mantle" was increas- 

 ingly suspect.^^ 



Unfavorable effects on the image of the Mohole project as a venture 

 in "pure science" probably resulted from such developments as (a) 

 the intense commercial competition for the contract, with its at- 

 tendant (and probably inescapable) allegations of political influence; 

 (b) the metamorphosis of the accomplished ocean drilling team under 

 Bascom from an Academy of Sciences staff group into a commercial 

 company ; (c) the conflict among leading scientists over the time phas- 

 ing of the project (the "intermediate" versus the "ultimate" drilling 

 vessel controversy) ; and (d) the infirmity of cost estimates and esti- 

 mates of time to completion, regardless of whether these reflected 

 changes in the scope of the project, or improved appreciation of the 

 difficulties of the first penetration to the Mohole. 



The Mohole episode provided instructive lessons as to the im- 

 portance of unified control, clear-cut objectives, and effective manage- 

 ment of a large science project sponsored by the Government. It 

 illustrated the hazards of departing from established policy and 

 procedures in order to "get on with the job." In particular, it showed 

 that the rather casual management exercised by a research team uni- 

 fied by a common enthusiasm for a scientific quest provided a poor 

 foundation for expansion into a major system development project. 



Issues raised by the Mohole episode 



A fundamental issue involved in the Mohole project was as to the 

 allocation of funds for a large project in basic research — particularly 

 in competition with other claimants for research sponsorship. The 

 scientific rewards of the Mohole project were unquestioned, and the 

 more notable because they were widely distributed among ocean- 

 ography, paleontology, physical geology, and geophysics. However, 

 as projected costs rose steadily from the very beginning, there was no 

 basis at any point for a firm decision as to how much (conjectural 

 but highly probable) scientific information justified the (indetermi- 

 nate but increasing) level of funding. 



Another issue concerned the goals of the project. From the first, 

 the purpose had combined scientific discovery with scientific spectacu- 

 lar. It was evident that a more modest drilling program, with more 

 holes, geographically dispersed, to lesser depths, would yield much 

 new information at much less cost. The dramatic achievement of a 

 hole drilled all the way to the mantle, while sure to yield information 

 of great scientific interest, would probably raise more questions than 

 it answered ; much of its attractiveness lay in its spectacular character. 

 To secure reliable information about the mantle and the zone above 

 it would probably require several holes at different locations. Since 

 each drilling would take 2 to 3 years, the cost of combining (a) urgent 



15 According to Greenberg, op. cit., Edward Wenk, Jr., Chief of the Science Policy Re- 

 search Division of the Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress, "after conver- 

 sations in Moscow with high-level Soviet science administrators," had concluded that there 

 were no Soviet plans to drill explicitly to the Mohorovicic Discontinuity. (P. 177n.) Green- 

 berg adds : "All along there had never been anything but the flimsiest evidence of Soviet 

 interest in a Mohole project, but this did not prevent the proponents of Mohole from 

 projecting the impression of a frantic race with the Russians." 



