334 



course, it is better to know beforehand how much is involved. I am 

 sure there will be many, many changes that will go on as we go along. 



Thank you very much. 



Dr. Egberts. Thank you, sir. 



Mr. Hathaway. Thank you very much. 



There is one question I want to ask you before you leave. 



Although consolidation of functions is an admirable objective in 

 almost any field, the argument is made in certain cases that there is 

 an advantage that we have in fragmentation from the competitive 

 element involved. 



For example, you have the various manpower training programs 

 being conducted today by the Department of Education, by Labor, 

 by OEO, and some say we ought to consolidate and save money, but 

 others say let's leave them as they are, because we get new ideas from 

 the competitive element of these three agencies competing in that one 

 field. 



Do you think we might make a mistake in this area by consolidating 

 all atmospheric agencies in one agency, and lose the competitive 

 advantage ? 



Dr. Roberts. I realize that there are advantages to a certain measure 

 of separation, but in respect to the creation of the NOAA, I believe 

 that the advantages from consolidation of many atmospheric science 

 functions that are not now recommended for consolidation outweigh 

 the disadvantages. 



In particular, there are areas of atmospheric research that involve 

 weather modification, that are so integrally related to the problem of 

 prediction as the character of the winds over the mountains, that to 

 separate these into two separate agencies means that programs that 

 should be carried on in a coordinated way have to go to separate 

 agencies to receive separate components of the funding. They have 

 to be defended before separate committees, and the total program that 

 needs to embrace four or five cooperative efforts by separated agencies 

 is only as strong as the weakest link in the particular defense of the 

 particular component. 



Eight now, for example, in northeast Colorado, NCAE is orga- 

 nizing — and I wish I had time to tell you the history of this — what we 

 are calling the northeast Colorado hail experiment. 



The Eussians demonstrated some years ago that it appeared to be 

 possible to suppress 90 percent of the hail in a major thunderstorm 

 by firing antiaircraft shells into the lower part of the thunderstorm. 



We have decided in the United States, with ISTCAE playing a prin- 

 cipal role, and with the support of the Interdepartmental Committee 

 on Atmospheric Science and the National Science Foundation, to 

 mount what I like to call a Chinese copy of a Eussian experiment, to 

 see whether American thunderstorms behave the way they appear to 

 do over the collective farms of the Soviet Union, and see whether it is 

 possible to suppress hail over northeast Colorado. 



It involves coordinated components of support from ESSA, from 

 the Department of the Interior, from, the Department of Agriculture, 

 from the National Science Foundation, military support for the air- 

 craft, and a number of other things. 



Now, to bring these together, and to get the funding through the 

 separate committee structures that are involved, means, in spite of 



