189 



abandoned the eifort. If Russian scientists elect to take up the task 

 it will be without the stimulus of U.S. competition.^^ 



Of course, Mohole had many beneficial side effects. It generated a 

 tremendous volume of educational values — through hundreds of tech- 

 nical papers, books, and articles about deep ocean drilling, and in- 

 formative testimony in congressional hearings. There seems to be no 

 doubt that additional students have been attracted into the earth sci- 

 ences — oceanography, seismology, geophysics, geology, and others. 

 Vigorous programs, supported by NSF, are currently underway in 

 both shallow and deep water drilling. In piarticular, the JOIDES 

 program, that Dr. Haworth so carefully distinguished from Mohole, 

 is now beginning more and more to resemble the original AMSOC 

 plan for a series of "intermediate" drillings,^^ While there is slim pros- 

 pect that any drilling ship or platform now available can reach the 

 earth's mantle, a persuasive case could be made that events are in 

 motion toward that goal. 



Many factors contributed to the failure of Mohole. The initial mo- 

 tivating concept passed too readily from science program to spectac- 

 ular project. The initial AMSOC conunittee and staff, called upon to 

 convert itself from a resourceful operational team into a policy con- 

 sulting group, was not equal to the diseiplinaiy restraint of the ad- 

 visory function. The NSF was apparently not fully qualified to man- 

 age such a major undertaking, and, once loaded down with a restrict- 

 ing contract, found itself unable to enlist a suitable academic manage- 

 ment to assume the burden of managing an enterprise in which so 

 many commitments had been made in advance. The synthetic pres- 

 sure of urgency imposed by the fictional "race to the mantle*' com- 

 pelled NSF to place the Mohole phase II contract prematurely. NSF 

 felt compelled to select a commercial engineering manager rather 

 than pursuing the more deliberate and time-consuming course of 

 encouraging the formulation of an academic consortium to plan^ 

 develop, and execute a comprehensive and balanced program of 

 scientific exploration and research, mainly centered on exploitation 

 of the new capability for deep ocean drilling. The contractor selec- 

 tion procedure itself left nagging uncertainties. The disagreement 

 among scientists as to the intermediate versus the ultimate 

 vessel, complexly linked to the issue of many holes versus one hole,, 

 weakened the confidence of the Congress in the scientific basis of the 

 project, as well as in its management and the prospective results. 

 The contract requirements compelled the contractor into the design of 

 a ponderous and inflexible platform that would be costly to operate 



*8 Although the much-cited Soviet competition during the active life of the Mohole 

 project lacked sufficient substance to be credible, Soviet drilling programs are continuing. 

 According to Business Week "* * * Soviet geologists are urging that an attempt be made 

 to drill through the volcanic rock in the Kurile Islands, off Japan, where the earth's crust 

 is said to be relatively thin." The account continues : "The Kurile venture might produce 

 the first scientific evidence concerning the earth's mantle. Penetration of this interior 

 layer • * * could conceivably provide a key to the riddle of how and when the earth 

 began." (Dig-we-must project, Soviet style, passes 3-mile mark in search for geological 

 data. Business Week (Mar. 25, 19fi7), p. 11R). 



88 See : Jonathan Eberhart. Drilling Under the Sea. Science News. (Aug. 10. 1968, vol. 

 94), p. 143. "More than 60 holes will be drilled during the 18-month voyage, and although 

 none of them will penetrate as far into the crust as would have the 4-to-.5-mile Mohole 

 (the deepest will reach about 25,000 feet), some may originate in 20,000 feet of water, more 

 than a mile deeper than the Mohole site." See also : Scientists Launch Coring Program 

 To Explore Deep Ocean Sediments. Ocean Industry. (November 1967), p. 32; Deep Se:i 

 Drilling Project: Something for Everyone. Ocean Industry (August 1968). p. 5; Tjeerd 

 H. van Andel. Deep-Sea Drilling for Scientific Purposes: A Decade of Dreams, Science, 

 (June 28, 1968, vol. 160), p. 1419. 



