Transportation study, which deals with the problem of aeronautical research and development, but this applies across the whole board of aeronautical R. & D. in other words, not just aircraft but air traffic control problems, and so forth.

In reading Senator Anderson's subcommittee report which came out last year on this particular subject-this subcommittee report, incidentally, recommended that this study be conducted. I am sure that coming out of that will be a finding that the Department of Transportation should use NASA's laboratories to a much greater degree in solving some of its problems with respect to transportation.

I don't think at this stage of the game that every department needs to set up its own separate laboratories. I think you should take advantage of all the laboratories we have in existence, and certainly NASA provides tremendous support to the Department of Defense, and it can also provide tremendous support to the Department of Transportation and to HUD.

I think these things should develop. I would hope they would develop faster rather than slower.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Walker.

Dr. WALKER. No. I was just saying, "Yes."

Mr. DADDARIO. I think at this stage of the game General Schriever threw the ball over to you for your part of this discussion.

STATEMENT OF DR. ERIC A. WALKER, PRESIDENT, PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

Dr. WALKER. Well, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that I was president of the National Academy of Engineering, and I would like to testify as an engineer. This is going to limit my vision and point of view, but I think that there are some insights that ought to be brought

out.

During the past few weeks I have been reading a great deal about what has been said about establishing a Federal Department of Science, sometimes called a Federal Department of Science and Technology. This is the point I want to attack. When I come across these articles it seems there is some pretty loose thinking about the establishment of a Department of Science and Technology. No one makes a clear distinction between what is meant by science on the one hand and technology on the other.

The word "technology" always seems to be thrown in as an afterthought. And I think we have seen this here this morning by Dr. Long talking about science and General Schriever talking about technology, mostly. No one seems to go into the problem of what the differences would be in the establishment of a Department of Science as opposed to a Department of Science and Technology.

As a matter of fact, in the reprints of the committee the phrase "Department of Science" seems to be used almost interchangeably with a Department of Science and Technology. In some places it seems throw in the word technology as sort of an afterthought.

you

Let me say that I think there will be quite a difference in meaning and scope between a Department of Science and a Department of Science and Technology.

What are the differences between science and technology? Well, to me in basic terms the job of science is to inquire into the workings of nature and to seek an understanding of it, to accumulate scientific facts for the sake of accumulating scientific facts.

The task of engineering and technology is to use this information in the most practical and effective way possible to create the devices and systems that are needed for the comfort, convenience, and progress of man.

They are quite different jobs. There has been a tendency in the popular mind to confuse the goals and purposes of science with those of engineering.

So today some use the words "science" and "technology" almost interchangeably. And it is my impression that we, and the universities and Government, don't give enough attention to the technology end of it. Now, to some people science means learning the way nature works and only that. And there are people in the world who feel that to pursue scientific knowledge for its own sake is something that is pure and noble, while trying to put that knowledge to use is degrading and beneath them.

And this, in my belief, is one of the difficulties in England. It is the real reason that the universities over there have never become associated within industry as we have in this country. Most of the academic dons don't want to get involved in the commercial end of things.

And to a growing extent, I think this is coming true in this country. On the other hand, we in America for more than a century have been known as the country that really understands technology. We have had the Edisons and McCormicks and Alexander Graham Bells and so on, who often produced the devices and machines that people wanted and would buy, even if they didn't understand the science that stood behind their inventions.

Now, that becomes a lot more difficult to do today, to invent without understanding science, because things are a lot more complicated today. But indeed there are times when we take a chance and we produce new items without really understanding what goes on scientifically.

We had swords and Kentucky rifles long before we understood metallurgy. And we still use aspirin and they tell me we don't know why it works. Well, after World War II I think Americans realized that this country had been importing most of its science from abroad. We also realized with somewhat of a shock that we couldn't go on much longer depending upon someone else to make the discoveries so that we Americans could use them.

This was pointed out in the Steelman report, Vannevar Bush, "Science, the Endless Frontier," some 20 years ago. And then this country embarked on an era in which we began to support pure science handsomely, and indeed it has paid off. But today I think many people would agree with me that perhaps our science is getting too far ahead of our technology.

By that I mean in many instances it would appear that basic knowledge is accumulating at such a rate and to such an extent that it can't possibly be used effectively without a more conscious effort to put it to practical use.

We are filling our laboratories with an almost unbelieveable amount of new knowledge. We ask ourselves what practical use we made of all the facts, theories, and discoveries. Should we not examine more critically the whole process of innovation by means of which this basic knowledge is put to practical use?

Now, putting basic knowledge to practical use is usually a long and expensive process. Usually it consists, first of all, of finding out what people want and what they will buy. People of this country want automobiles, good roads, and a cure for cancer. We also need a cure for air pollution.

We need clean water supplies and places to get rid of our garbage and solid wastes. We need ways of transporting people from here to there rapidly and safely. We need power systems that won't fail. And we need new systems of building, supplying, and living in cities. And most of these problems don't need much research. Most of the scientific facts we need are already known.

But what these problems really need is some good technology. Now, how does this technology takes place? Well, someone usually sees that there is a need and he has a bright idea as to how he can fill that need. You can call this discovery or invention or engineering. It is one and and the same thing.

I think engineering is just a sophisticated way of inventing something. But engineering tells us other things, too. For example, what metals we can use in the machine, how to make the device light enough and small enough to be useful, what principles one can use to make it attractive to a customer, and at the same time make sure it fills his needs at a price he can afford to pay.

This process of technology consists of taking applied research, developing some models, testing them, discarding them, doing some engineering on a successful model, and finally building something, testing it for customer acceptance, and it becomes something we have got in the arsenal of things we need.

Now, the motivating principle behind technology has usually been the chance to make a profit. If an industrial corporation can make a computer, an electric generator, or an automobile or anything people want and if they can protect their position by patents or manufacturing processes or good sales organizations, they find production worthwhile.

This puts people to work, pays stockholder dividends, and it fulfills a need for the public. But unfortunately, the profit motive sometimes breaks down, especially in public areas, because there is not much profit in making some of the things the public wants.

And if the public is going to get some of these things it needs and wants, it is going to have to get them with the aid of the Federal Government, either through regulation or through the Government support of technology.

It is fairly apparent to most engineers that we can clean up our air pollution, for example. If we passed enough restrictive laws concerning the use of the air, such laws would force us to pay attention to the technology of doing so.

But there are more complicated problems like this, in which we know a great deal about the science and technology of the solutions

but we have never really tried them, and there isn't anybody who is willing to try them. The treatment of acid mine water is a case in point. Many of the mines that are polluting our streams are abandoned and belong to no one but the State. And in the case in Pennsylvania, many mines which were not polluting the streams some 5 or 10 years ago have been changed in their drainage pattern by new highways and new roads and now the streams are polluted.

You ask who is going to pay for the technology to develop acid mine water treatment plants. It is perfectly obvious that the support must come from the public in some form or other. The development and testing of plants like this isn't something that you do in a test tube or in a 5-gallon jug in the laboratory. At some time or other you have got to build a full-scale plant and test it.

And this might be done by universities, but they have to be supported by the Federal or State government to the tune of some a million dollars to construct such plants and probably several other millions to actually test them after they are built.

I know we at Penn State have built an acid mine water treatment plant, at a cost of about $2 million, and it is going to cost us threequarters of a million dollars a year to run it and really see if it is an acceptable mechanism for taking care of acid mine water. You don't do this on university appropriations, and you don't do it on a National Science Foundation grant.

If this country is going to solve some of these national problems, large sums of money have got to be provided not for the science but for the technology of the problem. And these sums might be provided by a Department of Science and Technology, but it is not going to be done by a Department of Science.

And just to attach the word "technology" onto the Department of Science isn't going to solve the problem either. Twenty years ago, Mr. Chairman, I sat in one of these rooms to urge the passage of the National Science Foundation Act. At that time I kept saying it ought to be the National Science and Engineering Foundation.

My colleagues convinced me that science meant science and engineering, and so I gave in. And the National Science Foundation Act has never supported the engineering and technology that we need. And so what I am saying is if you are serious about this and you mean technology, be sure to write engineering and technology into the act, not only in its title but in its procedures.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Walker, when you say that we have got to do this either through legislation or through Government support of technology, how does the private sector fit into this? Are you dissuaded from the idea that through Government regulation or through the threat of regulation and through the development of the necessary technology in the private sector, that we would have no chance to meet these challenges?

Do you eliminate that as a possibility?

Dr. WALKER. Well, can I give you an example which I think will explain my stand on this?

Cement plants make a lot of dust. A precipitator can be devised, designed, and built to take out 90 percent of that dust, 99.9 percent. But it is expensive to build, it is expensive to operate. It might add as much as 5 cents per 100 pounds to the cost of making cement.

So company A is not going to do it unless company B does it. But if there were a State or Federal regulation saying they all have to do it, then industry obviously would devise the mechanism for doing such a thing.

But I come back to another example and that is sewage disposal. Sewage disposal plants are built by cities, boroughs, counties, and so on. It is perfectly possible to devise a better sewage treatment system in a laboratory, but before you are completely sure it will work you have got to build a full-scale working setup.

Now, if I as an engineer would go to a small town and say, "Here you are going to build a new sewage treatment plant, I wish you would build one according to this new system I have devised," I think the town fathers would say, "How sure are you that it will work," and I would say, "Well, 95 percent."

But I don't think a town father can take a chance playing with the people's money. So he will say, "Sorry, I will take the old system which we know will work but might not be quite as good." Here is where the Federal Government might step in and say, "Look, we will take the chance of providing the money to build this new system to see if it will work."

Now, of course you can say, "Well, why doesn't the National Science Foundation do it, because they have a Engineering Division?" Well, it is just too expensive under the appropriation that the National Science Foundation has for engineering.

One shot of this would cost $2, $3 million, and you can't do that if you got some $20 million for engineering in the National Science Foundation.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Long.

Dr. LONG. I wanted to supplement some of the things that Dr. Walker said. I certainly don't disagree with many of his points. We always fuss a little bit about the use of words. I use a certain amount of applied science, and clearly what I call applied science fuzzes into technology imperceptibly.

In many ways it is interesting that other countries are much broader about this. Lots of countries use the word "science" to include essentially everything that all of us have talked about and a good deal more besides.

The typical academy of science in Czechoslovakia or Hungary or the Soviet Union will include not only science and engineering but the social sciences, even to and including history, as components of something they call science, which means they have simply taken that word and put a rather broader definition to it.

So that even though I agree that we have to be pretty careful that we have support for applied science as I use the phrase, and technology as President Walker used the phrase, still there is a little bit of words. And that leads me to the point that neither of us have perhaps said enough to emphasize that one of the kinds of science that has got to have important consideration in this is the group called social sciences. As we study these problems of very much the kind President Walker was talking about, we do find that over and over again we do need social science inputs. It is no accident that universities increasingly are turning toward interdisciplinary programs in which we pull together