342 



The other thing I wanted to refer to in your testimony is on page 3, 

 where you indicated that the Government needs to help private in- 

 dustry, "by initiating fewer big Government supported programs using 

 unnecessarily expensive and inefficient research vessels." 



Would you care to be a little more specific as to what you had in 

 mind in that particular statement. Did you have in mind smj particu- 

 lar activity that we have initiated ? 



Mr. Beckmann. Yes, I think one of the things that has occurred in 

 oceanography, say, in the last 5 years is that the greatest expansion in 

 oceanography has come from taking existing vessels and putting them 

 over into a budget called oceanography rather than ship operations. 



The oceanographic community went on a program which defined a 

 10-year expansion effort to build many, many research vessels. It has 

 accomplished that purpose and has built many, many research vessels. 

 The only thing that everyone forgot was that the vessels require 

 scientists to work on the data and that the vessels become rather all 

 consuming when the budget cut gets a little tight, so that we now find 

 ourselves, at the present time, continuing to build large vessels costing 

 over $10 million, $10 million to $15 million, yet cutting our programs 

 at the National Science Foundation and Navoceano, and so on. All 

 these programs were operating vessels that cost about $1 million. 



Therefore, I feel strongly that at the present time we have far more 

 vessels than we can utilize and we don't have enough money to operate 

 the vessels that exist. 



Mr; Hanna. Then what you are talking about is that more money 

 should now go into operational programs rather than development of 

 expensive vehicles. 



Mr. Beckmann". I think that is right, yes. I would like to see the 

 attitude of oceanography turned around a little bit to be mission 

 oriented. Pick out a few of the recommendations in the report and do 

 them. 



I agree you can't do oceanography without vessels, but when the 

 vessels get to be so large that they are overpowering the accomplish- 

 ment of any work, I think it is wrong. 



Consider Lamont Observatory at Columbia whose budget is about 

 $7 million a year. Woods Hole about the same, and Scripps about $10 

 million, and then talk about building research vessels for $13 million 

 or $15 million apiece, I think that this is out of proportion. 



Mr. Hanna. You feel that there is more return on the investment 

 if we can go now in terms of putting the eyes and ears and talents to 

 work on a specific mission. 



Mr. Beckmann". Yes. I think that is very definitely right. I think you 

 can see that with the work that the Glomar Ghallenger has been doing 

 with the essentially shallow coring problem in the ocean. 



Mr. Hanna. I think that was the point that Jacques Cousteau was 

 making at the oceanography meeting a few years ago when he pointed 

 out that it was very important to have the man present who drives the 

 vehicle because he provides the eyes, and he told the story of the re- 

 markable bull in Spain where there was this tremendous example of 

 the bull which looked like it was admirably suited for the ring. He took 

 it to the ring but he said, "Unfortunately, bull, you cannot see. You 

 cannot tell the difference from the picador, the matador and the 

 cuspidor. Everybody is so sad." 



