12 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



However, I believe that our own practical problems of defense, of 

 resources, fuel, and food for the human population, will involve the 

 earth and not outer space. The ocean is a great source of many of 

 these materials, of food, energy, transportation, communication. 



We have to be practical about it. The amount of energy that it 

 takes to operate in outer space or even in what might be called semi- 

 outer space in the immediate area around the earth is tremendous and 

 I believe that a developing population will find that the most efl&cient 

 and economical way of utilizing energy will result in a stronger 

 nation. 



What I am trying not very effectively to say is that the oceans and 

 other resources on land can be had and utilized with much less ex- 

 penditure of energy than we are forced to use to go away from the 

 earth, and I think that we have to use our resources and our energy 

 as efficiently as possible in order to maintain a strong and healthy 

 Nation. 



Mr. Oliver. Is it your feeling that the potential resources of the 

 ocean that have been spoken about here this morning are great enough 

 so far as we know almost to an unlimited degree and would more 

 than compensate by far any expenditures of money that we might 

 put into bringing about a result of knowing more about them and 

 of utilizing them ? Is that a correct assumption ? 



Mr, Vetter. Yes, it is. 



Mr. Oli\'er. In this IGY activity that we participated in, is it 

 your feeling that the United States contributed to this to such a sub- 

 stantinal degree that perhaps our relative position with regard to the 

 other nations who participated showed up successfully and well in 

 terms of oceanography ? 



Mr. Vetter. I think so. I think we made a very good showing 

 on the international level for the IGY. 



Mr. Oliver. Have I not read somewhere recently that in checking 

 with the Eussian research ships with particular regard to fisheries 

 that they seemed to have more specific data than we ? 



Mr. Vetter. I guess so. I do not know. I have not read this. 



Mr. Oliver. I saw that somewhere. Do you think that that may 

 be the actual situation or do you think that our knowledge and data 

 is fully as good or better than what they may be coming up with 

 or have come up with ? 



Mr. Vetter. I would not underestimate their determination to get 

 a great deal of data from the oceans particularly from the stand- 

 point of fisheries and military applications of the oceans. As to 

 their data being better or our data being better. I think they are 

 both good. If we have to make a comparison I think it is best to say 

 that their effoi-ts now seem to be devoted toward the routine examina- 

 tion, surveying of the oceans, conducting large worldwide cruises in a 

 similar way to the effort that the European countries conducted in the 

 past 20 years of running long worldwide cruises for exploring the 

 oceans. The great phase of running expeditions into the oceans is one 

 that the Russians seem to be in now. I think we are at the stage of 

 having built up enough understanding of what is going on in the 

 oceans to be able to formulate a hypothesis to explain something we 

 have observed and then go out into the oci^ans with detailed and 

 planned experiments to test with our hypothesis. 



