469 



sible for actually carrying out our research and development work, 

 say, at or near Goddard bpaceflight Center, in intimate and almost 

 daily contact with the oceanographic community. I guess in the par- 

 ticular case of oceanography it may even be more appropriate at our 

 Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston because they are operating the 

 two aircraft that I mentioned. It must get right down to a day-to-day 

 kind of communication back and forth in order to carry out these 

 programs. 



Mr. Drewry. It is probably too early to ask you about what your 

 funding for 1969 will be. 



Dr. Seamans. It is too early, obviously, in that the budget has not 

 been approved as yet, but we anticipate it will be of the same order 

 as 1968. 



Mr. Drewry. As I understand you and Mr, Karth, the development 

 of your activities in oceanography has been sort of a spinoff nature. 

 You have done certain things, you have very obviously said "Oh boy, 

 here is something that can be used in oceanography." Some com- 

 munication with user agencies would indicate that they say "Sure, 

 that looks pretty good. Do it some more." But up until now I jud^e 

 from the tone of your statement that you still feel that you are m 

 pretty much of an exploratory stage or experimental stage. You used 

 the term in connection with the development and test of remote sensors 

 as something you will get to "when appropriate." I wonder if it isn't 

 appropriate right now, now that you have found so much can be 

 done, that there be an active coordination among the agencies, either 

 through the Council or otherwise ? Do you have anything or is there 

 anything such as, say, a 5-year program of areas which should be 

 worked on and developed ? Or is it more casual ? 



Dr. Seamans. It is not casual. It must be carefully managed to 

 be productive but it is still exploratory. The possibilities of this whole 

 area of earth resources, including oceanography, are obviously very 

 exciting. We do not want to be too conservative but we must keep 

 pointing out that we don't yet Iniow what the payoff is goin^ to be 

 or can be, and we won't until we run some additional experiments, 

 particularly using aircraft. 



Now, we are thinking in terms of an expansion of the aircraft pro- 

 gram to get data from higher altitudes and to get more data, to be 

 able to run more flights. I think at this time that is where the em- 

 phasis should be, to broaden out the exploration but not at this time 

 to commit ourselves to any type of operational system, although we 

 must keep this in mind as a possibility. 



It is for that reason that we are carrying out these preliminary de- 

 sign studies of possible satellite configurations. 



Mr. Drewtry. On page 12 it seems to me you hit a rather strong point 

 on the subject of data management. You say that "The present ac- 

 cumulation of our limited K. & D. experiments signal the need for 

 this facet of a full-system." What kind of timetable do you have on 

 the development of a system ? 



Dr. Seamans. The matter of data management is an area of very 

 major importance, particularly when we consider so-called imaging 

 devices, to send pictures back from the spacecraft by data link which 

 requires a great deal of bandwidth in the transmission system, both 

 in regards to the spacecraft and the ground environment. 



