100 Research and National Purpose 



I can speak with some feeling on this in relation to missile 

 systems of other kinds, since the earliest effort on radio guided 

 missiles, which became the NIKE systems for air defense, oc- 

 curred in our research area at Murray Hill before there was 

 any government sponsorship. This was under conditions of 

 diverse scientific insights, in which such efforts as supersonic 

 aerodynamics, Shockwave theory, the work of Courant, Her- 

 mann Weyl, von Neumann and others in analytical mechanics, 

 the studies of Kistiakowsky and Wilson on explosion-produced 

 shocks, the work of Bethe and Teller on thermal equilibria, 

 the basic studies of a host of others on telecommunications 

 and signal theory and feedback and servomechanisms were 

 all thrown together. Now once more in this case we see, as the 

 program was shaped into a systems development, the essential 

 pattern — of assigning a specific systems program to one kind 

 of institution (in general, the industrial defense contractor) 

 while retaining continuing opportunities for constant review- 

 ing and reconfirming of elemental scientific principles on 

 which the whole system concept must ultimately be based. 



Now this is institutionally quite different than 

 The Scientist having the generating scientists operate the 

 and Systems developments, as happened by necessity during 

 Development the flourishing days of the OSRD and NDRC, 



a quarter of a century ago. Furthermore, mod- 

 ern systems integration and production are just too difficult, 

 expensive and far-flung to have the particularist attempt to 

 mastermind engineering for design and manufacture. This is 

 where the big change has come, and where industrial applied 

 science and technology have progressively matured, so that all 

 are increasingly openminded about the fluidity any particular 

 project should retain. This fluidity means to admit a ceaseless 

 flow of review and re-examination, and sometimes of revision 

 and (often annoying) redoing of parts of the system, as a result 

 of exterior scientific insight and even hindsight. And we cannot 

 say too often how vital is this elasticity of industrial and De- 

 fense Department coupling with the national and world scien- 



