the transfer of Federally-owned or originated technology (ref. 213). It remains to be seen whether this and other legislation will really lead to greater productivity or whether, in pursuit of aims set forth in high-sounding language, government employees will shuffle paper. Where the government is not itself the buyer, such policies lack all focus. In particular, the experience of NASA and some AEC laboratories in setting up technology utilization programs has not been encouraging (ref. 214). In promoting innovation, the role of the Bureau will be a limited one. And necessarily so. The Bureau, after all, comes under pressure from many directions: from Congress, to move directly into product-oriented research; from the scientific community, not to compromise the quality of its basic research; from OMB, to do only such work as can be justified on the ground that the Bureau is the lead agency; and from industry, to establish standards in cooperation with, and not competing against, the private sector. Bureau officials have tried, with some success, to steer a course between two opposing policy models, each fraught with political consequences. One position would be to restrict the Bureau to its traditional role in measurement science, on the ground that this in itself represents an important contribution to economic growth. According to this view “. . . the Bureau performs basic research, not for industry or for a particular technology, but in the limited area of physical measures While these physical measures may be used for producing information about technologies. . . or technical or natural processes. or the distribution of physical particulates in a media (sic), the emphasis is on the measurements, not on the processes or technologies." (ref. 215.) The other position would put the Bureau in an activist role. It would move into exploratory research and would concentrate on those industries that, for whatever reason, could benefit by the research they could not themselves perform. In practice, the Bureau has tried to strengthen those areas where its basic competence resides and to move gradually into targeted exploratory research. This category of investigation has been defined by the National Science Foundation as "the early stages of research in areas not yet well enough defined or understood to merit full programmatic support." Since the late 1970s, the Bureau has managed to get Congress to vote full funding for mandated programs. It has also persuaded Congress to fund special "competence building" projects, which are intended to sustain the Bureau's scientific and technical base. The Bureau's rationale is that, with so much of its competence diverted to short-term work, some way must be found to keep its best people in the advanced research which is the basis of its special competence. Such research can be justified for its own sake and for the way it fits NBS mission objectives. As part of this competence building, NBS scientists and engineers have done (or are doing) important research in wave optics, organic electrochemistry, quantum radiometry, and advanced robot vision (ref. 216). The same rationale sustains the Bureau's sponsorship of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1962, JILA is an independent research institute, a joint venture of NBS and the University of Colorado. The staff at JILA engage in research of the most fundamental kind in atomic and molecular physics; part of this work is supported by NBS direct appropriations, part from other-agency contracts, and part from direct Colorado state funds. As with the Bureau's competence-building program, the existence of JILA is justified on the ground that “. . . basic understanding in [atomic and molecular physics] would increase the Bureau's long-term ability to respond to measurement needs in emerging technologies, or industrial areas, for example, lasers or chemical reactions in chemical processing, and improve the precision of measurement in fundamental physical constants. The case for such work was coupled with the assertion that, in the future, the Bureau's role in standardization and measurement would shift from that of a developer and doer to a teacher and innovator.” (ref. 217.) JILA's existence can be justified on other, related grounds. New standards demand greater accuracy and flexibility and as such, are important to the economy. Tighter standards are only possible with better understanding of physical properties at the most elemental level, and ways to control them. More important still, the development of the knowledge behind the standards is, like the standards themselves, a public good not sufficiently appropriable by any likely group of firms or universities to be undertaken in an organized way without Federal support. The appeal of this arrangement is that JILA is perceived as an elite organization with a minimum of bureaucratic overlay. Less obvious is the role of JILA in advancing the Bureau's mission in applied research and engineering. Nevertheless, other joint institutes have been proposed — for example, in microelectronics and membranes for chemical separation (ref. 218) and the concept is one that fits nicely with the Bureau's strategy of maintaining and subsequently expanding its traditional areas of competence. Thus the Bureau is trying to pull off something quite difficult. This "something" is to continue its role in advancing measurement science, something essential to the infrastructure of science in the United States, while moving into exploratory research in areas that Bureau staff see as vital to industrial growth above all, in automated manufacturing (ref. 219). The next group of laboratories we consider is very different. The Multiprogram Laboratories of the Energy Department In moving from the National Bureau of Standards to the multiprogram laboratories operated for the Department of Energy, certain differences are obvious (ref. 220). Where the Bureau is operated by government employees, the latter are government-owned, contractoroperated facilities. Where the Bureau's principal clientele is the industrial sector, the former AEC laboratories have worked primarily for the AEC, the Department of Defense, and other agencies. Where the Bureau has traditionally avoided contracting out, the Energy laboratories subcontract on a massive scale to industry and universities. And lastly, where the Bureau has, for good reason, shunned product development, the Energy laboratories have been involved in many kinds of production - from nuclear warheads to prototypes of commercial reactors to synchrotrons. The nine laboratories we shall consider represent one of the heaviest investments in basic and applied research made by the United States or any government. By "multiprogram" we emphasize that each laboratory has capabilities in many areas of basic and applied research, as well as in energy and weapons technology development. This sets them apart from other laboratories established either to operate a very large research facility - for instance, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center — to do research in one discipline, such as inhalation toxicology, or to work on one product or technology, as the Knolls and Bettis Atomic Power Laboratories specialize in nuclear propulsion. The nine multiprogram laboratories, with their locations, primary mission or core area, and operating contractors are shown in table 12.* To generalize about the work of these nine laboratories is difficult. Suffice it to say that the laboratories handle close to half of the Energy Department's research and development budget and about nine percent of total Federal research and development; that they conduct about 70 percent of the Energy Department's weapons development and about 24 percent of energy-related research and technology development; and that they represent an investment of over $3 billion (ref. 221). It should also be recognized that, besides doing research and development, the laboratories have other important roles. They serve as technical consultants to the Energy Department, drafting environmental impact statements, making technical assessments of safety and health-related work, and helping the Department to be an informed buyer of industrial services. They maintain special research facilities, some of them unique. Several laboratories produce items of commercial value, like the radioactive isotopes manufactured at Oak Ridge. All of the laboratories * See Appendix III for more information about the nine multiprogram laboratories. are involved in education and training; many allow doctoral work to be done at their facilities and hire postdoctoral students for short periods. As systems engineers, as consultants to state and local governments, and as stewards of unique facilities, the multiprogram laboratories contribute in many ways to the nation's science and technology base (ref. 222). Sandia Albuquerque, research, development, and Laboratories New Mexico; engineering of nuclear weapons Western Electric The roles and missions of the laboratories have changed significantly since their establishment. Most were created as part of the Manhattan Project, although Brookhaven was founded in 1946, Sandia in 1948 to 1949, and Lawrence Livermore in 1952. Since then the laboratories' fortunes have depended largely on national policy toward the uses of atomic energy. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 envisaged industry and the AEC laboratories working in tandem to develop commercial light-water reactor systems (fig. 50). As the first commercial nuclear plants came on line, the amount of nuclear energy research and development at the laboratories dropped. It was at this time that laboratory directors, notably Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge, began to emphasize their laboratories' abilities to move into areas of nonnuclear research where they could make a real contribution for example, in civil defense, air pollution control, and water desalination. The problem, as Weinberg saw it, was that most large Federal laboratories were tied to missions that might or might not matter a decade hence. "When a government laboratory finishes a project, it cannot ask, What is the most important national problem. . . to which our talents can be put? Rather, the laboratory must ask, What is the most important problem, coming within the purview of our sponsoring agency, to which we should next turn? This narrower set of problems may not be as important to the nation as are other problems which are the responsibility of a different agency, but which the laboratory may be equipped to handle. Such rigidity reduces the efficiency with which we deploy our federal scientific apparatus." (ref. 223.) FIGURE 50.- The Yankee Atomic Reactor, a commercial light water nuclear power plant operated by New England Power and Light Co., Inc. As it turned out, the AEC and its laboratories moved in two directions concurrently. On the one hand, as we saw earlier, the AEC shifted its emphasis in the mid-1960s from encouraging commercial |