NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 245 



Mr. Reinecke. You indicated that — you had a certain fear that a 

 single agency would, as you put it, fragment Federal responsibilities 

 in these matters. 



Dr. HoLLOMON. Yes. I do. 



Mr. Reinecke. Do you feel that NASA has fragmented the Fed- 

 eral responsibilities in the space area ? 



Dr. HoLLOMON. NASA is a somewhat different problem. At the 

 very beginning, as was commented yesterday in testimony, there were 

 no people, substantially, other than the military and some parts of the 

 old NACA that had to do with space at all. It is a new technology. 

 It is not a requirement — an established, long-time requirement — of 

 many agencies and missions. 



But, now, let's take what is happening with respect to even the 

 NASA activities. The Congress, and I think wisely, has assigned to 

 the Department of Commerce the responsibility of the operation and 

 funding for the meterological satellites which have been so successful, 

 after the fundamental Avork had been done by NASA. 



We also have to fund the development of the instrumentation for 

 those satellites. 



Now, whether we need them or not, and how good they are for 

 weather observation, in my view, should be decided by the Weather 

 Bureau. If those costs get out of line, relative to some other way to 

 get the same observations, the Weather Bureau should make that 

 decision. 



Now we are in the process. That is one step that the Congress took. 



The second step the Congress took was the establishment of COM- 

 SAT Corp., which is to utilize the technolo^ of space for the purpose 

 of communication. And this kind of activity is now diffuse and dis- 

 persed, because we are now able to say, "All right; here's something 

 we can do with it," and then the funding for that is, as you know, in 

 private hands. 



I think increasingly we will use satellites for geodetic measurement. 

 We have a joint project with NASA and the Department of Defense 

 which we hope will be funded in the new ESSA organization, be- 

 cause now we can use it for measuring the land, which is a responsi- 

 bility formerly of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. Here again, we 

 will have some other activities in satellites, so as we begin to develop 

 the use of these tools, they get diffuse, and properly so, in my view. 



Now, in the case of oceanography, the knowledge of the oceans is 

 essential to the missions of many agencies of the Government, and 

 they, in my view, have to make the trade-offs, the relative judgments 

 as to what they ought to be. 



Mr. Reinecke. Well, I agree that in any particular scientific 

 endeavor, diversity is the keynote of success, but we seem to be lacking 

 coordination. 



One final question : You seem to indicate that you felt that the Inter- 

 agency Committee on Oceanography was doing a good job, and I am 

 interested in know^ing why, then, the President felt the necessity of 

 setting up his Oceanography Panel. 



Dr. HoLLOMAN. First off, the Interagency Committee on Ocean- 

 ography is primarily, but not exclusively, a Government interagency 

 committee. It represents the Federal establishment and coordinates it. 



Now, one of the things we learned during the war, and I think 



