254 OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 



a problem across the whole intemational field of oceanography, his- 

 torically speaking. 



Mr. Bauer. Thank you. 



Then, Admiral, you say there is certainly merit in the idea of having 

 standardization of oceanographic equipment, would you not? 



Admiral Stephan. I think this is absolutely essential. 



Mr. Bauer. And at the current time apparently there is no stand- 

 ardization as such set up ? 



Admiral Stephan. At the Plydrographio Office, we have long felt 

 this need. I have at the present time for the Hydrographic Office a 

 request for f mids to establish an mstrument^ test and evaluation center. 

 We have done this in order to get our hat in the ring, and we con- 

 template that the Interagency Committee on Oceanography will take 

 up this problem. In fact, we were discussing it at one of their recent 

 meetings. I think that their position on it will be firmed up in the 

 next couple of weeks ; and I am sure they will strongly support the need 

 for these test and calibration centers. 



I think we will wind up recommending that there be one on each 

 coast so as to try to reduce the cost of freight, of shipping instruments 

 back and forth, and the difficulties of keeping instruments in calibra- 

 tion with shipping them successfully. 



Mr. Bauer. Now, it is my understanding. Admiral, is it not, that 

 you are currently standardizing for certain South American countries 

 certain of the oceanographic instruments ? 



Admiral Stephan. We are trying to. We have had two people 

 irom the Hydrographic Office visit the countries in South America 

 that are principally involved in oceanographic programs, and we are 

 trying to work with them and have had a great deal of success in 

 working with them. I think a lot more will be done in the future 

 than has been done in the past to standardize with them. 



Mr. Bauer. Thank you, Admiral. 



I understand that you have some charts that could be of assistance 

 to us on the flow of data input and so on. Would you care to show 

 them to us at this time ? 



Admiral Stephan. Mr. Chairman, in trying to keep the Hydro- 

 graphic Office focused in this problem, we have sort of outlined what 

 we consider to be the objectives of the national oceanographic pro- 

 gram. They are : To acquire the understanding of the ocean and to 

 translate this understanding into operational concepts and hardware 

 which will enable the United States and its allies to exploit our pe- 

 culiarly oceanic position militarily, economically, and politically. 



This is not an official thing. It is something which we use to try 

 to keep ourself focused on the national problem, 



Fimctionally, if this program is going to be accomplished, there 

 must first of all be collection of data. This data must be fed into an 

 oceanographic data center in a modern, fast method arid presented in 

 sudh a form that the scientific coimnunity in both pure and applied 

 research can study it, develop the understanding, formulate the rules 

 that govern the ocean, and out of this, in cooperation with industry, 

 develop the hardware and the operational concepts that will exploit 

 this knowledge. 



Data by itself will not help us solve our military and economic and 

 economic-political problems. The data has to be handled properly. 



