343 



Dr. Frosch. We entirely agree. One of the things we look forward 

 to doing is using our experience in this program to help establish 

 standards, and in fact not only standards for engineering require- 

 ments but even possibly standards in size and arrangements so there 

 will be, we hope, in the end some compatibility among the various 

 vehicles operated by the Government and by private industry, and so 

 that there can be assistance and some interchangeability of personnel 

 as well as the interchange of technology. 



We hope to make not only the technology available, but make it 

 possible for the various vehicles to work closely together. 



Mr. Rogers. Because if we can develop this technique of operating 

 in deep water, this will also give us the ability for industry to go in 

 and occupy the deep bottoms ; will it not ? 



Dr. Frosch. I think that is quite correct. 



Here is a case where the engineering results of national security ob- 

 jectives and nonmilitary exploitation objectives involve essentially 

 the same kind of technology. 



Mr. EoGERS. Does the Sealdb have a connection with this ; are you 

 integrating the experiments carried on ? 



Dr. Frosch. The Sealah work, of course, has been principally aimed 

 at man's capability both to live and to work in that environment, and 

 we are hoping to build up to a capability to integrate human beings 

 into certain kinds of naval activities which would involve such work. 

 Of course, here again the human skills and capabilities we wish to im- 

 prove for military reasons are also precisely the skills and capabilities 

 that would be usable in a commercial and in an industrial sense. 



Mr. Rogers. But if you develop, as I understand it, the deep sub- 

 mergence vessel and the technique to operate it through Sealah^ this 

 definitely ties in and is a great boom to industry in trying to explore 

 the resources of the sea bottom ? 



Dr. Frosch. That is correct, but of course at the present time we do 

 not see that men will be able to operate at the depth to which the ve- 

 hicles will go. So there will be a joint operation of vehicles and men 

 to some depth and beyond that depth only vehicles. Gradually we may 

 increase the depth at which men will operate, but at the moment, cer- 

 tainly, we can have vehicles that will work much deeper than exposed 

 men. 



Mr. Rogers. Yes, but I presume you could place equipment on the 

 bottom of the sea and have a transfer from the vessel to the equipment. 



Dr. Frosch. Yes. We are looking at that possibility. _We are also 

 in the long run looking at the possiblity of transferring the men 

 themselves from mobile platforms to fixed habitats and so on. 



Mr. Rogers. May I ask how you feel AUTEC, the Atlantic under- 

 sea technology evaluation, is coming along? 



Dr. Frosch. AUTEC is coming along very well. 



As you know, all of its capabilities are not completed, but we are 

 proceeding on a reasonable schedule to complete those that are not 

 yet finished. The range has already proved to be of considerable value 

 in some of our test programs. 



Mr. Rogers. Do you intend in this program to allow industry to 

 come in and use the range ? 



Dr. Frosch. We have been looking at that. There are two kinds of 

 problems that we need to solve before we can do it. One is that some 



