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more about tlie ocean currents and where they are and how extensive 

 they are than even those agencies who have had the primary respon- 

 :sibility for this important work. They have even shown us where large 

 concentrations of fish take place and the potential migrations of these 

 fish. Certainly many people on this subcommittee are interested in 

 that. 



Other than that, Mr. Chairman, I have no particular questions. 



I think some years ago, perhaps 2 or more years ago, I suggested 

 that one of the best things for oceanography might be an agency that 

 I liken to what the gentleman mentioned a few moments ago, such as 

 NASA. I am not sure whether a wet NASA should be part of dry 

 NASA or not — or whatever you want to call it. 



Nonetheless, here is an agencj^ which has exhibited, I think, greater 

 •capability in seeking and getting answers to questions, to the un- 

 knowns, than any other agency of Government, and it might well be 

 that NASA should play a very important part in whatever future 

 oceanography has. 



Dr. Seamans says he is not a meteorologist. Perhaps he is not ex- 

 perienced in some of these areas but in spite of that I have a feeling 

 that Dr. Seamans knows as much about it as a good number of people 

 who for any number of reasons have been recognized as experts. 



With that in mind. Dr. Seamans, I would like to ask whether or not, 

 in your opinion, this overall systems analysis approach, the systems 

 capability approach, is not the kind of approach we need to get the 

 tinswers to questions we seek in the whole field of oceanography. 



Dr. Seamans. I think one very important element of exploration is 

 the stage we are in now. We must evolve careful thinking through the 

 possibility, I won't call them requirements, thinking of possible objec- 

 tives for the ultimate operations system. To begin with, it is tenuous 

 enough that it has to be thought of as an experimental program in 

 order to get the data which then permits cost effective studies, and 

 ■so on, to be worked out for the users. 



I think one of the very important elements in having this successful 

 is that the organizational setup must permit a relatively rapid trans- 

 fer from ideas, scentific and technical ideas, over into experimental 

 data to test the ideas. 



As I said earlier, I prefer not to comment on what the organizational 

 structure might be, overall, for oceanography because it is a very com- 

 plex matter with many, many users, and so on, but I think the ex- 

 perimental work as applied to space — or I would imagine as applied 

 to work using ships and submersibles — must permit the scientific and 

 technical people involved to move quite rapidly from their ideas of 

 phenomena or from ideas of how to do the job better over into a test- 

 ing of their ideas. 



I think we, in NASA, have not achieved the millenium in this regard 

 but I think we have come a long way in providing a way of separating 

 out conversation to hard facts of what you can and cannot do in giveii 

 situations, and whether you really can come close to satisfying ultimate 

 operational needs. 



Mr. Karth. One comment there, Mr. Chairman. I think it is ap- 

 propriate that occasionally we do give credit where credit is due. I 

 would hasten to add Dr. Seamans, that some of us have been critical at 



