NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE 



ON 



OCEANS AND ATMOSPHERE 



Washington. D.C. 20230 



75 November 1974 



Honorable Frederick B. Dent 

 Secretary of Commerce 

 Washington, D.C. 20230 



Dear Mr. Secretary: 



In your letter of August 21, 1973, you asked NACOA to define the 

 national need in civilian ocean engineering, and to discuss who ought to 

 be responsible, as between the private sector and the government, for 

 meeting particular portions of it. 



Our reply has been longer in coming than we had intended. 

 There turned out to be no obvious consensus in the answers to the 

 questions you have asked. Reasonable suggestions for improving the 

 national effort have been made by many— in studies over the last 

 decade and in the interviews staff conducted during the last year. 

 There were persuasive arguments for developing various aspects of 

 engineering in the oceans. But no specific applications of ocean engineer- ^ 



ing to civilian needs swept the field as critical, urgent, national in scope, 

 yet neglected. 



The panel we appointed to look into this matter consisted of 

 Dr. Donald B. Rice, Chairman, Mr. Charles F. Baird, Dr. Dayton H. 

 Clewell, and Mr. Elmer P. Wheaton. It reports that it found itself in a 

 position of concluding that the paramount national civilian ocean 

 engineering need is not a specific number of projects in ocean engineer- 

 ing, but rather a modest organization whose function it would be to: 



a) work on and develop standards which presently, in ocean 

 engineering, lag other engineering; 



b) fund good ideas in meeting basic engineering needs to the 

 point where they could generate support on their merit or 

 fade away on their lack of it; and 



c) animate technical transfer and professional communications. 



The basic needs would be concerned not so much with systems as 

 with special materials, techniques, and engineering characteristics re- 

 quired for many different kinds of marine operation. 



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