Science and Public Policy: Agency Mission 37 



provide it with as broad a range of future technological choices 

 as possible. This fund of knowledge must be effectively avail- 

 able to the technical and managerial arms of the agency, and 

 may have to be adapted to its unique technological require- 

 ments. The needed research comprises a chain — or, more pre- 

 cisely a network — extending from work of obvious immediate 

 relevance to the mission back through research in fields of less 

 and less obvious relevance. This chain must be followed reason- 

 ably far back towards the most fundamental or abstract fields 

 in order to evaluate how much further the state of the art 

 could be pressed quickly if needed, to appraise the reliability 

 of technical judgments and evaluation of systems based on 

 current understanding, to predict what technical choices may 

 be open to us in the future and what accomplishments might 

 be possible for other nations — in short, to avoid technological 

 surprise. These requirements involve a subtle blending of 

 scientific knowledge and sophistication with knowledge of 

 agency needs and technological thinking. One cannot depend 

 upon the program officers of other agencies to be aware of all 

 the needs of the Navy! 



The fund of basic knowledge required by an agency may be 

 divided into three general classes. 



(a) Fields of science in which the mission orientation admits 

 of no clear limits to agency interest, and requirements differ 

 in both kind and volume from those of any other component 

 of the nation's technological community. In the Navy under- 

 water acoustics, physical oceanography, and deep sea tech- 

 nology are clear examples. In such cases the rate of progress 

 which would result from free play of academic interest in the 

 science for its own sake would be unlikely to satisfy the ob- 

 jectives of the agency, 



(b) Fields of science which are of vital importance to the 

 agency mission, but whose importance is shared almost equally 

 with other agencies of the government. In the case of the Navy 

 examples which may be cited include electronics, materials, 

 meteorology, and human factors engineering. On the other 



