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matters to the national interest, and the importance of encouraging 

 the maximum freedom of scientific research in the world oceans, 

 because we are now reaching a point where we are finding increasing 

 restrictions on the ability of our scientists to conduct scientific re- 

 search in the world's oceans, especially in coastal waters of various 

 nations. 



With regard to the exploration of the oceans, we felt that the ])ro- 

 posed International Decade of Ocean Exploration which has recently 

 been supported in the United Nations would make an excellent vehicle 

 for the conduct of such a program of exploration of the deep seas. 



We feel that there are a large number of things with respect to the 

 exploration of the deep seas we must do. I won't go into detail. How- 

 ever of special interest are two of the national projects which have 

 been mentioned j^reviously as means of focusing our technology 

 development which we propose should be undertaken in connection 

 with the national effort to explore the global environment. 



The first of these deals with the development, construction, and 

 use for civil purposes of a deep submersible which would have a 

 20,000-foot depth and ocean transit capability. A development of 

 this kind would enable us to explore the ocean's depths on a global 

 basis. The second deals with the need for an ocean data buoy network 

 which would be advanced by a project such as that now presently 

 being directed by the Coast Guard, to provide platforms for the taking 

 of ocean and weather observations we are going to need on a global 

 basis. 



In connection with the need for a global environmental monitoring 

 and prediction system, we are making the recommendation that the 

 ocean and weather monitoring and prediction systems of this Nation 

 should be brought together in some way so that they can be managed 

 and planned in a systematic way. We would be using a variety of new 

 technologies here, buoys, satellites, merchant vessels, and so forth, 

 and any ocean monitoring system would have to be planned in concert 

 with the weather system as well as in concert with similar systems 

 being planned by other nations and by international organizations. 



We feel that it is going to be necessary for the Department of 

 Defense to be able to have the necessary capability to respond to its 

 military needs with regard to environmental information. These two 

 systems, the civil and military, as described in detail in the Commission 

 report, would have to be planned and coordinated very closely to make 

 sure that the information derived from one system was useful for the 

 other system. 



We make a number of recommendations for immediate improve- 

 ments in our present environmental monitoring and prediction system 

 which would not be very costly to the Nation. For example, today, 

 out of a total of some 7,000 or 8,000 merchant ships available for ac- 

 quiring ocean and weather observations, the nations of the world 

 today acquire observations from some 3,500; of these, 2,000 are U.S. 

 vessels. Here is an activity which could be augmented relatively 

 quickly at very reasonable cost to provide additional observations. 



With respect to environmental modification, we feel that the time 

 has come to look at this problem in a long-range systematic way. 



It is quite clear that there are growing concerns in the Nation as 

 to what is happening to our environment. There is concern that the 

 increase in carbon dioxide which results from the burning of fossil 



