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abyss. Those 2,000 meters buy us a great deal in terms of opening 

 up our last frontier. 



We are also on the threshold of the addition of a new technology 

 to deep submergence science. In the last few years, engineers and 

 scientists have successfully hardened the capabilities of remotely 

 operated vehicles which, for the last two decades, have been so suc- 

 cessful in shallow water applications both in industry and in sci- 

 ence. They are now hardened to depths that can take us to the 

 deepest parts of the ocean. These new ROVs hold tremendous po- 

 tential for us in that they open up horizons in terms of greater 

 access to the depths, time in the water, and time on the bottom. 



To manage these technologies, whether they be manned or un- 

 manned, takes a tremendous infrastructure in terms of the exper- 

 tise of the scientists and engineers; without that infrastructure, the 

 systems cannot be properly maintained, and developed so they 

 remain on the cutting edge of their capabilities. It was, I think, 

 largely for this reason that the tripartite agreement some 20 years 

 ago between the Office of Naval Research, NOAA, and NSF was 

 created. They recognized that Alvin could not succeed unless there 

 were some sort of safety net that would ensure that this intellectu- 

 al reservoir was on hand to see that the Alvin system was there 

 and properly maintained. I think it is very important to consider 

 when we look at these assets that we must have centers of excel- 

 lence with continuity because this expertise, once it leaves, is not 

 easily rehired. It is not easily found on the street. 



To conclude, let me just point out what I think are some of the 

 problems facing us with respect to deep submergence science; I 

 think there is a short-term problem and a longer-term problem. 

 The short-term problem is that the national facility represented 

 presently by the submersible Alvin, and recently added to with an 

 ROV capability, the Jason-Medea system, each year hangs by a 

 thread in terms of its funding future because of vagaries in the 

 way the three agencies are funded. 



To give you the most recent example, this past year in '93, the 

 NOAA-NURP budget was partitioned, and in so doing, it essential- 

 ly compromised NOAA's contribution to the Alvin such that 

 NOAA administrators, who had their hands tied by this partition- 

 ing, could not commit to a level of support, or even say that they 

 could make a contribution to Alvin in '93. That in itself is serious, 

 but you must realize that the program is like a string of pearls, 

 and you start to remove one or two of those pearls, and the string 

 loses its continuity. So the whole program was held hostage right 

 up until the last moment, making it very hard to develop the na- 

 tionally and internationally competitive program that is necessary. 



In addition, we have recently, as I mentioned, added this marvel- 

 ous new ROV capability in the national facility, the Jason-Medea 

 system, but the bottom line has remained the same. We are faced 

 with an almost Solomon-like decision, at a time when we are faced 

 with exciting, societally compelling scientific questions, we have a 

 new tool added to our capabilities to address these questions, and 

 yet we have to decide whether we use the Alvin and its reliable 

 capabilities or we use the ROV. 



Those are short-term problems. I think the longer-term problem, 

 and Sylvia touched upon this, is that we really need, I think, a na- 



