99 



Yet another finding is that the slow-moving DoE bureaucracy would make it im- 

 possible for Mound to act quickly to alter its internal structure or processes. As one 

 example, Mound has installed a sophisticated and very costly X-ray inspection device. 

 This is a standard product, bought commercially and used widely in industry. Nearly 

 two years after installation, the DoE has still not approved it for operation. By con- 

 trast, industrial firms typically have identical similar devices in operation within 30 to 

 45 days after installation. No private firm could afford to pay the capital costs of such 

 a piece of equipment and then let it sit idle for two years while the bureaucracy slowly 

 churns through the approve process. 



Perhaps the best way to summarize our findings regarding the Mound Facility is 

 that its complete closure by DoE makes it both necessary and possible to privatize 

 some of its capabilities. If instead the DoE workload were to be reduced but not 

 eliminated, and commercial work sought as a supplement to the DoE work, it would 

 be impossible for Mound to compete effectively because of the DoE regulatory envi- 

 ronment and the DoE overhead cost structure. The same will hold true for any at- 

 tempts to open the Federal labs to commercial work. The bureaucracy, the 

 regulations, and the overhead will inevitably make the labs noncompetitive. 



PRIOR HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE 



This is not the first time the U.S. has faced the issue of what to do with no-longer- 

 needed Federal laboratories. During World War 11, many laboratories were estab- 

 lished to carry out R&D necessary for the war effort. Some of these, particularly those 

 dealing with atomic weapons, were kept in existence to meet the needs of the Cold 

 War. Many, however, were simply closed at the end of the war. 



One of those laboratories closed was the Radiation Laboratory at Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. This laboratory was highly successful in developing surface 

 and airborne radar equipment, and control systems for anti-aircraft guns. The RadLab 

 carried these to the pre-production stage before turning them over to industry. The 

 RadLab-developed SCR-584 radar, with its associated gun-control servomechanisms, 

 was a major contributor to the defeat of the V-1 "buzz bomb" threat during the last 

 few months of World War 11 in Europe. 



At the end of the war, the Radiation Laboratory was simply disbanded. Most of its 

 personnel returned to industry or to academia. some of the latter staying at MIT and 

 others going elsewhere. Some of these former RadLab people founded new labs, such 

 as the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory (now the Draper Laboratory), which devel- 

 oped auto pilots, flight control systems, and inertial navigation systems for aircraft, 

 missiles, and spacecraft. 



The wartime work of the RadLab was summarized in a series of twenty-some vol- 

 umes which were widely used as handbooks and textbooks for at least fifteen years 

 after the end of the war. I used several books out of that series as texts when 1 at- 

 tended graduate school in the mid-1950s. 



In short, disbanding the Radiation Laboratory resulted in the massive transfer of 

 its wartime-developed technology to industry, to academia, and to a new generation of 

 students. This result is not surprising. Numerous studies of technology transfer have 

 confirmed that one of the most effective ways to transfer new technology to potential 

 users is to transfer the people who developed it. 



The implication of this experience for the Federal labs, especially those which are 

 no longer needed for military purposes, is that they should simply be closed. If some 

 portion of their activity is still needed for military purposes, they should be downsized 

 or that portion of the mission transferred to labs which are being kept open. The ex- 

 perience of history is that the no-longer-needed labs should not be kept open and 

 converted to commercial work. The best way to commercialize their capabilities is to 

 transfer their people to industry and academia. 



