III. The U.S. IDOE Program 



What's Unique About IDOE 



The IDOE program within the National Science Foundation is not 

 the only major international effort in ocean exploration in which the 

 U.S. participates, nor does it represent a major portion of the U.S. effort 

 in oceanography. Other international programs receiving substantial U.S. 

 support include the International Geodynamics Project, the International 

 Phase of Ocean Drilling (IPOD), the Circum Pacific Map Project, and 

 the Global Atmospheric Research Program. Within the United States the 

 IDOE, budgeted at roughly $15 million per year, represents approximately 

 10-15^f of the total Federal effort and approximately 25% of the total 

 NSF effort in ocean research. Comparable or larger sums are allotted to 

 ONR's ocean science program, NOAA's Sea Grant Program, and, in 

 NSF, to the Deep Sea Drilling Project and the oceanographic program 

 within the Division of Environmental Sciences in NSF's Research Di- 

 rectorate.^ 



Many of these programs have as their goals increased understanding 

 and predictive ability pertaining to physical and chemical processes occur- 

 ing in the oceans, movement of ocean waters, seafloor geological structures 

 and the processes that form them, and the functioning of marine organ- 

 isms and ecosystems. What then is unique aobut IDOE? 



One characteristic is the attempt to develop multinational collabora- 

 tion. Marine science in the United States started modestly with limited 

 objectives, received a large boost from W'orld War II, and matured 

 further with the International Geophysical Year. The IGY program 

 involved worldwide measurement of geophysical phenomena, including 

 a special effort in the oceans, and set up mechanisms for international 



1 As we go to press, the National Science Foundation is undergoing a major reor- 

 ganization. One outcome is that the Directorates of Research and of National and 

 International Programs no longer exist, and the research activities in the oceanic, 

 atmospheric and earth sciences which were formerly housed in those two directorates 

 have been brought together under a single Assistant Director for Astronomical, Earth 

 and Ocean Sciences. 



