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SUPPLEMENT I / 43 



national anxiety about a loss of U.S. technical superiority and led to immediate 

 efforts to expand U.S. R&D, science and engineering education, and technology 

 deployment. Within months, both the National Aeronautics and Space Administra- 

 tion (NASA) and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (AREA) were established. 

 NASA's core included the aeronautics programs of the National Advisory Committee 

 on Aeronautics and some of the space activities of the Department of Defense 

 (DOD); ARPA's purpose was to enable DOD to conduct advanced R&D to meet 

 military needs and to ensure against future "technological surprise." Federal appro- 

 priations for R&D and for mathematics and science education in the NSF and other 

 government agencies rose rapidly over the next decade, often at double-digit rates in 

 real terms. 



• Growth of federal support for health research accelerated rapidly in 

 the late 1950s. During the early 1950s, growth in federal funding for health re- 

 search slowed considerably from its torrid pace in the immediate postwar years. In 

 the late 1950s, however, several factors converged to give renewed impetus to 

 federal support for biomedical research: key congressional committees with respon- 

 sibility for health-related research were chaired by powerful advocates of increased 

 federal funding. Congress was appealed to by influential citizen advocates of in- 

 creased funding for research to combat specific diseases. The calls for increased 

 funding were supported by a strong NIH director, who could point to new scientific 

 understanding of disease processes as the basis for anticipating medical break- 

 throughs. The result was the rapid growth of federal funding for health-related 

 research that has continued nearly unabated to the present as new discoveries, and 

 the rise of new diseases such as AIDS, have led to ever-greater commitments to 

 biomedical research. 



• In the 1970s, new R&D-intensive agencies addressed environmental 

 and energy issues. Both the environmental movement and the energy crisis of the 

 1970s raised some doubts in American society about the wisdom of a national 

 culture committed to consumption and economic growth, and led also to increased 

 public and private spending on environmental and energy R&D. The energy agen- 

 cies of the federal government were reorganized twice during the decade. In 1975, 

 the Atomic Energy Commission was divided into the Energy Research and Develop- 

 ment Administration and a new regulator^' agency, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatorv' 

 Commission. In 1977, the Energy Research and Development Administration and 

 other federal energy-related activities were combined to form the Department of 

 Energy (DOE), which was given major new responsibilities to fund energ>'-related 

 R&D. 



• In the 1980s, the competitiveness challenge expanded the federal 

 role in R&D and stimulated a new commitment to cooperation among 

 industry, government, and universities in the conduct of R&D. By the early 

 198()s, the industrialized world had largely recovered from the effects of World War 

 11, and ke>- Asian nations were devising new approaches to industrial production. 

 The increasing challenges from competition abroad — in markets for traditional 

 goods as well as a growing list of goods based on advanced technological capabili- 

 ties — raised new questions regarding the role the federal government should play in 

 assisting U.S. industr)- to develop and use new technology for competitive purposes. 

 This topic remains under active debate today. 



