190 



and excessively specialized for the broad range of secondary research 

 purposes claimed for it. The extreme difficulty of achieving with a' 

 high probability of success the ultimate goal contracted for, inexor- 

 ably raised the costs. The freedom with which unauthorized predic- 

 tions of costs were offered to Congress and the public by unqualified 

 persons, or with insufficient evidence, added to the unfortunate im- 

 pression of steeply rising costs of the project. The absence of experi- 

 enced contract management, with its skills in tight cost control, and 

 the apparently relaxed attitude toward unnecessarily high standards 

 of designs for services and facilities, also added to the costs.''" Dr. 

 Haworth's admission that further exploratory deep ocean drilling 

 should have proceeded concurrently with the evolution of the Mohole 

 project and its hardware confirmed the earlier error in scheduling 

 of the research plan. The subsequent sponsorship by NSF of such 

 drillings, may have diluted the support for the central Mohole project. 

 And finally, to the very end, Mohole remained — in the eyes of the 

 Congress and the public — a project rather than a program. It was 

 one drilling platform to drill one hole, instead of a comprehensive 

 research program into the ocean floor. 



To be sure, there were extenuating circumstances. A confusion as 

 to objectives is an unavoidable aspect of every scientific research 

 program of large scope in a new and unexploited area. It is merely that, 

 lor NSF, the Mohole project was the first such task to challenge it. The 

 urgency with which the project was pressed in the early stages merely 

 intensified its problems. Then, too, NSF had not been able to develop 

 a program of full exploitation of deep-water drilling. This was in 

 part because of its manner of doing business. The contractor had a 

 narrowly defined engineering task and had no interest in making 

 it more complicated; NSF itself dealt in science "grants," which 

 depended upon the interests of the academicians proposing researches. 

 As Senator Allott said : 



As a matter of fact, the National Science Foundation was never meant to 

 handle a project of this kind. They are not equipped to do it, and I honestly 

 think * * * that that is part of the reason why this particular project has become 

 such a calamity.'^ 



The role of the Congress in helping to secure the orderly and business- 

 like development of a major project can be a commanding one. If, as 

 Representative Miller said, Mohole was an "orphan" insofar as com- 

 mittee support was concerned, the project also lacked the advantages 

 of sustained continuity of congressional committee and committee staff 

 scrutiny. The development of an expertise in the congressional orbit 

 would have enabled the generation of progressively more searching 

 questions. The absence of adequate, objective, scientific, and technical 

 guidance of the project would, in all probability, have come to the 

 attention of the Congress, and greater pressure exerted on NFS earlier 



'"In comment on the GAO final report on Mohole (Administration of Project Mohole 

 by the National Science Foundation, op. cit.), a letter by William M. Rice, project man- 

 ager for Brown & Root, is appended, pp. 57-59, which states: "[The Mohole platform] 

 was to be absolutely safe, reliable, redundant, multipurpose, self-propelled, typhoon re- 

 sistant, hurricane proof, with deluxe VIP and scientist quarters, spacious university- 

 oriented onboard laboratories, all In accord with passenger ship rules, best U.S. Navy 

 and Marad practices, and having USCG, USPHS, and ABS approval." 



" Congressional Record (Aug. 24, 1966), p. 19636. 



