217 



Mr. Rogers. Did you luive any difficulty as far as the safety factor? 

 Did anything liappen ? 



Dr. Clii^'on. Not really. 



Mr. Rogers. No real problems. 



Dr. Clifpon. No real problems at all. 



Mr. Rogers. Of course, we had an unfortunate situation and I won- 

 der if techniques there might have changed that situation. 



What about the use of submersibles in the whole project? Were 

 there many submersibles used or could they have been used, or could 

 they be effective in helping you carry out your mission ? 



Mr. Waller. In the Tektite project itself it would have been very 

 good to have had a swimmer delivery vehicle to permit us to range 

 a lot further away from the habitat. 



The swimmer delivery vehicle, of course, would not have been of 

 much use without a long-duration breathing unit. We needed both. 

 There were other equipment items needed also. I am sure that careful 

 attention is going to be paid to these equipment lacks in the future. 



I might say generally that I feel that submersibles are in the same 

 category as undersea habitats. I think they are all new and exciting- 

 tools to probe the oceans with. 



Mr. Rogers. I will agree with you and I would think it would be 

 very helpful to have them as you say carry you from one spot to the 

 other from your habitat and get there perhaps more quickly and you 

 could operate at a longer distance from your base. 



Here again I am concerned with the fact that Defense has now cut 

 the submersible joint fund there from $3 million at a time when we 

 need to be making progress here and we have asked the Secretary, I 

 personally, and I am sure other members of this committee have asked 

 him to reconsider this. 



I hope it will be done and I think your testimony today will help 

 point up the need for more work in this area and the use of the sub- 

 mersibles. 



When we found out about that we had about 1,600 requests for 

 submersibles. Yet now we find we won't have sufficient money. 



Finally, you were on time as to when the project was projected. 

 You had no basic slippage. 



Mr. Waller. Well, yes, sir. We did have a little slippage. Some 

 8 months before the project started I had scheduled that we would 

 begin the project on the 15th of February at 10 o'clock in the morning 

 and we did not make it until 5 minutes after 12 on the loth of 

 February. 



I might add that there was about 1 year and 1 month involved from 

 the conception of Tektite until it was implemented and this just did 

 not happen by accident. 



There were many admirals on the Navy side of the House working 

 weekends and evenings. A lot of hard work was done by the Office 

 of Naval Research, by the National Aeronautics and Space Acbninistra- 

 tion, and by many of the personnel in the Interior Department, and 

 last but not least I understand there were several divorce actions pend- 

 ing in Philadelphia because of all the time the General Electric people 

 were putting in building the habitat, 



Mr. Rogers. Let me ask this. 



Were there smj budget overruns ? 



26-563 — 69 — pt. 1 15 



