NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
469 
Chapter V 
SURVEYS AND SERVICES 
Some programs and activities in oceanography 
are undertaken to meet needs felt more or less 
strongly by each group within the oceanographic 
community but which are beyond the capacity of 
each to meet separately or of any to provide for 
all. Among these are broad area surveys, the main- 
tenance of a complete library of oceanographic 
data, the testing and calibration of a variety of in- 
struments, including novel ones, and forecasting 
oceanic conditions of both research and opera- 
tional interest. 
The first two of these are present realities as are 
ice and wave forecasting. The Ocean Survey Pro- 
gram, described in ICO Pamphlet No. 7, ultimately 
may be a part of an international effort as des- 
cribed in the next chapter. It has already begun in 
a small way with the closely controlled underway 
lines and the network of oceanographic stations 
conducted ir. the North Pacific by the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey’s PIONEER in 1961. 
The second service type activity is the National 
Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) which was 
established two years ago to assemble, process, 
archive, and disseminate to interested users all 
oceanographic data collected anywhere. Both 
these programs were endorsed and implemented 
through the Interagency Committee on Oceanog- 
raphy. 
The Navy has just established its own Oceano- 
graphic Instrumentation Center and steps are 
being taken to make this available to users on a 
national basis. The Navy’s ASWEPS (Anti-Subma- 
rine Warfare Environmental Prediction System) is 
expected to become operational around 1965. It 
may also provide some nonmilitary applications. 
A. The Ocean Survey Plan 
Both the scientific community, through the 
National Academy of Sciences Committee on 
Oceanography, and the various federal agencies 
have expressed the need for systematic mapping 
of the major properties of the oceans, the basins 
which contain them, the sediments which lie un- 
der them, the forces such as gravity and magnet- 
ism which permeate them, and the life which 
they contain. Such mapping can, of course, serve 
36 
a variety of goals, providing tools for use in mili- 
tary and economic welfare, as well as in scientific 
oceanography. The measurements of interest to 
each federal agency, the areas for early investiga- 
tion (limited for some time by the availability of 
Loran C precision navigational aids), and the 1964 
ship assignments are presented in ICO Pamphlet 
No. 12, May 1963. Detailed discussion is presented 
in the ICO “Ocean Survey Plan,” ICO Pamphlet 
No. 7, May 1963. 
The ship requirements for an ocean survey 
program cannot be exactly determined, since the 
desired rate of progress cannot be established ex- 
cept on subjective and intuitive grounds. Further- 
more, the actual rate of progress which various 
survey ships will demonstrate, once assigned, 
cannot be precisely estimated. Presumably much 
can be done to make present operations more ef- 
ficient if the ship is designed and equipped for 
participation in a coordinated program than would 
be the case if its survey work were done in isola- 
tion. Finally, the value of information collected 
from survey lines taken at close intervals, say ten 
miles apart, as compared to that which would re- 
sult from lines 20 or even more miles apart must 
be weighed against the differences in cost or time 
associated with each. It is possible that buoy devel- 
opments may proceed rapidly enough to replace 
some ship survey effort late in the time period. The 
economic and effectiveness considerations in- 
volved here have not yet been analyzed. 
Both the need and the magnitude of the job will 
never be greater than at present, however, and it 
is the present intention to proceed with an orderly 
survey program as rapidly as funds and personnel 
will allow. The Coast and Geodetic Survey, acting 
as agent for the ICO, has awarded a contract for 
a major planning study of optimal survey systems 
and their deployment. As estimated now but sub- 
ject to reconfirmation as plans mature, the next 
decade should see 24 new survey ships—16 built 
by the Navy to serve both in the ocean survey pro- 
gram (5) and for special military surveys (11) and 
eight by the Coast and Geodetic Survey (primarily 
for the ocean survey program). These plans will be 
responsive to new developments in instruments, 
particularly in buoys which may multiply the unit 
effectiveness and permit much more rapid prog- 
