24 



within the Pentagon establishment. We are the ones who can help 

 you access that information, and help determine the availability of 

 the equipment, the hardware, the programs, the technologies — 

 please use us for that. 



I would make that same point to the entire undersea research 

 community so we can help you in your effort to get the military to 

 be more responsive and more open in sharing what information 

 and what programs they have. Also, we can examine a shift in 

 funding. With the redownsize of the military, there may be some 

 shifting of dollars rather than eliminate programs wholesale. Per- 

 haps we can keep the research programs intact but shift it to a ci- 

 vilian sector because it has application for the kinds of needs you 

 are talking about. That type of movement is very much the in 

 thing here in the beltway now, and we want to help you take ad- 

 vantage of that. Now, I am sorry. Dr. Fox, you wanted to respond. 



Dr. Fox. Well, I am absolutely thrilled with your comments be- 

 cause you have put your finger on a marvelous opportunity, and 

 may I just give you an example or two. Last fall, we hosted a meet- 

 ing here in Washington that brought together engineers and scien- 

 tists to look at the state of technology in deep submergence science. 

 I happened to be the Chair in my capacity as Chair of the Deep 

 Submergence Science Committee, and I got a call from a fellow 

 who was with one of the Navy — what I call the dark side of the 

 Navy — labs in San Diego that historically we never hear of on the 

 civilian side, and he asked if he could attend, that he would like to 

 present some information about an autonomous underwater vehi- 

 cle. I said, "Certainly." I was somewhat skeptical. 



He arrived and he made a presentation about a dazzling piece of 

 technology that the Navy had developed that was essentially an 

 autonomous vehicle that could go to 6,500 meters, travel at six 

 knots, image the sea floor at a resolution that was state-of-the-art, 

 and had a telemetering system to the surface so that you could pro- 

 gram and interrogate the system. You could zoom in, and hover 

 over the object if you saw a target. I mean, it represented a system 

 that we had only dreamed of. The Navy had spent $24 million de- 

 veloping this system, and now the need had gone away, and they 

 were about to mothball it. Here is an example of a tool that if we 

 could transit it over into the private sector and find a way to 

 create infrastructure support, it could begin to open up this inner- 

 space frontier in a way that just wasn't possible before. 



So I am very heartened by your comments, and, indeed, again, I 

 think it comes as no surprise to you if you hear us say we will defi- 

 nitely work with you. This is just one example of a number. Nucle- 

 ar submarines under the arctic ice — a vast opportunity. The Navy 

 SOSUS array — I mean, we have the oceans wired for sound. They 

 are about to turn this system off. It is a system that we can use to 

 assess properties of the ocean that can't be addressed in any other 

 way. 



Mr. Weldon. That is exciting, and perhaps, Mr. Chairman, we 

 can, through this subcommittee and the full committee, bring to- 

 gether the Navy, the appropriate groups, and R&D labs and oper- 

 atives, that you all I am sure know, with representatives of the re- 

 search community, such as yourselves, and provide for that inter- 

 face. The fact that we make the commitment to be there ourselves 



